What Sets Us Apart
by cagd
Summary: Once upon a time, Rainbow Dash met an airplane in the human world and fell in love - her ambition is to become a top U.S. Navy Fighter pilot. She's almost there. Problem is, there's some guy who just won't get out of her way!
1. Introduction

_While working on the story "Immelman Turn", as a self-assigned summer project for the two of us to do together, my 13 year old daughter had a LOT of ideas that wouldn't fit into one story, in fact, a trilogy might be what she needs in order to use them all up. We have re-opened "What Sets Us Apart", retitled part 1 "The Immelman Turn" (To be followed by part 2, "Tailhook" and a third part as yet untitled) and plan over the next month to add two more stories to this ongoing work._

 _It's been interesting, watching documentaries on how aircraft carriers work, what it's like to be a woman in a mainly male dominated career path, all the while discussing how your past affects your present, and how sometimes people make apologies not because they are genuinely sorry, but to make themselves feel better._

 _My daughter, being who she is, decided early on that this isn't going to be a "rescue the princess" or a "guy from our world goes to another world and kicks ass (I'm looking at you, John Carter of Mars) and gets to be king" story, but a "friends rescue each other even while tripping over their own feet " kind of story. And what it might mean to be an amazon – without the benefit of bracelets, a lasso, and a fancy corset – or where you might find amazons in everyday life, (Spoiler: some of them are in wheelchairs._ )

Yes, there are elements of "Top Gun" in the story, but frankly, we decided to fill in the blank "Five Nights at Freddy's" character "Mike Schmidt" - what was he before he took on the Night Guard job at Freddy's? This has spawned several alternative timelines, this one is where he survived a temporary summer gig while at University, going on to a career as a Navy aviator and a completely different ending. Other timelines (still in development) he's not so lucky.

 _If we have got any or all details in re. the Navy wrong, please forgive us and yes, we would love to hear from you if you'd like to help us correct those mistakes in order to make a better story._


	2. The Immelman Turn 1

Rainbow Dash was suddenly homesick as she stepped into the large elevator. It was a bad feeling, worming into her stomach and eventually going for her heart.

Still, she'd made it this far, nearly four years in the Navy's flight training program, cutting her hair short and dying it black monthly, hoping no one noticed her unregulation rainbow roots.

She also was number two in the class, a position she hated.

She knew strategies for elevator boarding: find the tallest, strongest guy you can find, and stand by him, because everybody was too busy looking at the tall guy next to her to look too closely at her.

Short.

Short.

Short. Maybe.

Too new.

Short.

Shor…ah-ha! (He'll do!)

The winner was 6'5" in boots with a fresh blonde buzz cut, deep blue eyes, and a bored expression. He looked familiar, but everyone here kinda did to Rainbow. You see one human, ya' seen 'em all! (Humans were like penguins, with funny names like, "Jack" or "Mary, or "LaQuisha". What the heck is a "Mary" anyway?)

An official-looking lady boarded the elevator at the next floor.

A 6-footer straightened a bit. He asked her if she would go to a party with him that his friends were throwing in the dorms.

"I'll have to ask my husband." she replied.

"Oh. You don't have to bring him!"

"I'm afraid I'll have to, considering he's your commander."

Rainbow, the lady, and the bored man beside Rainbow stifled laughs, with Rainbow gripping her flight helmet even tighter to achieve this.

She glanced at the bored man's name tag.

"Schmidt." Hmmm… Familiar.

The elevator halted with a "ding" and the doors opened. Everyone poured out, heading to their respective destinations, with Rainbow and Schmidt sided by side down the hall.

"Dash." He said, opening the door to the classroom and ducked in after her.

"He knows me? Hmmmmm…."

Class started with roll call.

"Schmidt."

"Yo!" Schmidt said from the seat in front of her.

 _Shit - I was right, we went through Basic together!_ Rainbow thought, _He's the top of the class, too._ She glared at his back. _Stupid morning brain!_

After roll call they listened to a lecture as they waited for the sun to realize that it had over-slept. "Today we'll be working on aerial maneuvers. Who can tell me what an "Immelmann Turn" is?"

Two hands shot up.

"Lt. Dash. Lt. Schmidt. Let someone else have a go at it for once." The instructor scanned the classroom, looking for someone else to call on.

Two hands lowered.

"Anyone else?" The instructor called out, "Yeesh, it's like I'm only teaching two people here today!"

He scanned the room once more, sighing, "Fine. Schmidt, explain the "Immelmann Turn" and it's original dangers."

"Sir, the planes originally used for this maneuver had piston engines. During the maneuver, you would flip, and the engine would stall. There was also a chance at blackout, as well."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. How could someone so good at flying be so boring? "Textbook!" she muttered under her breath while pretending to cough.


	3. The Immelman Turn 2

The sun finally woke up.

Lt. Dash was still used to Princesses controlling everything on a tight schedule. "This place is one big mess in comparison!" she thought as she and the rest of the class made their way out onto one of the desert airstrips at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar among the parked F-14 Tomcats.

Her assigned Tomcat gleamed softly in the morning sun. Beautiful! She clambered into the cockpit, started the preflight warmup and put on her helmet and face mask while strapping down as the canopy smoothly closed overhead. The feel of the high performance aircraft coming to life beneath and around her was one she never tired of. How could something made of inert metal and glass feel so… so alive?

She taxied towards the runway, feeling the vibration of the almost living twin engines intensify behind her as she tested the flaps. She brought the 'cat to a halt, waiting for permission to take off, all but singing in her eagerness to take off and get things started.

The tower gave her permission, and Dash sent her assigned craft hurtling down the runway for an abrupt takeoff, the world falling away beneath her as she banked and leveled out, the early morning Pacific Ocean waves beneath her tipped with gold as the sun eased up over the horizon.

"Ow shit! That hurt!" She yelled, the plane yawing in response as her suddenly appearing wings, ears, and tail got tangled in her flight suit.

"You good up there?" The voice of the flight instructor in a matching Tomcat roughly a mile away starboard crackled over her helmet's built-in headset.

"Yeah..." Lt. Dash hedged, "…sneezed." She shifted around so that her hidden ears, tail, and wings adjusted to the cramped space of her cockpit, "Lets get going!"

It was only after an exhilarating time aloft that while climbing down from her own cockpit that Lt. Dash looked up and noticed Lt. Schmidt and their instructor still overhead.

He was so much better than she was, so precise. So, so… her hidden wings, tail, and ears...

…disappeared.

Rainbow Dash leapt off the backswept wing of her assigned F-14, landing hard with both boots before hurling her flight helmet down the runway away from her so that it came to a bouncing halt on the hot tarmac.


	4. The Immelman Turn 3

Back in the classroom at 17:00, their instructor announced just before dismissal, "We'll be pairing off during tomorrow's live fire exercises. You'll each be assigned a wingman… ahhhh," he glanced over at Lt. Dash, ".. _person_." There was a rustling noise as the student pilots looked around at each other. Clearing his throat, he continued, "Get along with this _person_. They'll be yours for a long time."

There was a mixed laugh from the class.

"Your assigned wing _person_ will be listed on the bulletin board at the back of the room tomorrow at 06:00. I suggest you read it. Dismissed."


	5. The Immelman Turn 4

"In case none of you bothered to check the list at the back of the classroom this morning," the instructor stated flatly, "I will now call out the teams."

Lt. Dash yawned, it was too early to read. Anyway, she was doubtlessly teamed with Arbuckle, a red-headed guy with a big nose even for a human from some place called Iowa who sat next to her. Okay guy, not much imagination, but he had skills… no problem. Secure in her assumptions, Dash took a long drink from the big travel mug of heavily sugared coffee in front of her.

"…last but not least, Dash and Schmidt."

"Hernk?" Rainbow nearly spat out her mouthful of coffee. Instead, she swallowed hard and opted for choking, all but coughing up her lungs in the process.

Schmidt stared at her expressionlessly from his seat by the instructor's desk as she hacked and spluttered while Arbuckle, her anticipated wing… _person_ , slapped her on the back until she got it under control.

Eventually Schmidt stood and calmly walked out of the classroom with Rainbow Dash not far behind, looking as if she'd like to throttle someone.

Schmidt led the first low altitude run, with a fuming Dash not far behind as they skimmed the desert floor, targets ahead of them.

He was good, she had to admit as she watched him beginning the run with an almost mechanical precision, really good.

Dash dropped in as he rose at the end of the run, the mountains in the background turning red-gold on their eastern flanks in the rising sun just as she started her own strafing run. She fumbled it, pulling out without having fired one shot.

This was going to be a long day.

Come at 16:00, a seething Rainbow Dash slouched down in her chair in the classroom as the instructor droned on, reviewing everyone's performance for the day.

She had come in last.

Dead last.

"…okay, before I dismiss everyone for the evening, I want all of you to get to know your new assigned partner – have lunch, play cards, drink beer, I don't care. Teams are built on trust. Now's the time to start building." The instructor switched off the A/V system so that the screens that had shown the world how badly Dash had done that day went blank. "Dismissed."

Lt. Dash resisted the urge to swear as she rose and tried not to storm out the door and into the blue twilight of early November.


	6. The Immelman Turn 5

Heading for the Officer's Mess, Rainbow dug an old book with a rainbow/lightning bolt on the cover from a side pocket. She opened it, indecisively glancing at the instructions written inside the cover: "Write in this to contact Princess Twilight Sparkle." before snapping it shut and shoving it back in her pocket.

Sitting at one of the long tables after she finished her tasteless meal, Dash pulled out a pen, re-opened the book, and began writing.

She apologized for not writing for so long, and then angrily told Twilight Sparkle about her day with Schmidt, no, _Mike._

The words sank into the paper and were then replaced with Twi's perfect hoofwriting: "Make the best of this situation. This Mike could help you improve." She followed this message with a doodle that was clearly meant to be Rainbow Dash flying upside down and backwards into a thunderstorm.

Rainbow Dash scowled. This was NOT what she wanted to see. She slammed the book shut so loudly that it made the guy at the next table jump and knock over his drink.


	7. The Immelman Turn 6

Still, friends are friends and what is life without friends? The next day Rainbow Dash wrote to them after she finished lunch, letting them know that she had been assigned the task to know what there was to know about Schmidt, the biggest pain in her flank ever.

Instead of being upset on her behalf, the ponies on the other side of the paper wanted to know all about this… person – particularly Rarity.

On Dash's side of the paper, she and Schmidt, no, MIKE stared at each other across the Mess table, waiting for one or the other to give in and say something. Rainbow looked down at the book, fidgeting.

Mike took a calm bite, chewed slowly (Rainbow Dash resisted the urge to look up and stare at his mouth. Human teeth were… weird, all pointy and jaggy in places and flat in others - and those FANGS. Was this normal?) and then swallowed. He cocked an eyebrow at her (another weird thing about human faces: eyebrows, like little caterpillars growing out of their faces. She still found hers… fascinating… every morning as she brushed her teeth, staring at them in the mirror over the sink in her quarters…).

They exchanged silences until Rainbow snapped, "Ok, I'm DONE!" and marched stiffly out of the Officer's Mess, the book a tattle-tale bulge on her hip.

Inside her pocket elaborately written words appeared inside the book: "You _really_ should have tried a little harder, dah-ling."

Feeling the vibrations of the book against her leg while walking across the heat-shimmering parking lot in front of the building, Rainbow Dash pulled it out, and furiously scribbled, "Rarity, you're acting like that was a stupid DATE back there!"

A car honked, she looked up. Lt. Dash had been so distracted by the book and her anger that she now just realized that she was blocking traffic. She shook her head, snapped the book shut abruptly, shoved it deep, deep into a random pocket, and walked stiff-legged back to the classroom, not once looking left or right as she went.

It was useless – they didn't get it. They just DIDN'T!


	8. The Immelman Turn 7

When Mike sat down across from Lt. Dash in the Officer's Mess that day for lunch, he already knew she hated him. Always had, even back in Basic. She was the kind of person who didn't mind being second as long as no one else was first.

And he was.

First.

Not that it had been easy: he'd worked hard to get into the program. Before going into the Navy, he'd taken dozens of shit-jobs to pay for his education and private pilot's lessons because even with scholarships and his uncle's help in getting a Bachelor's in Aviation Mechanics with a minor in military history at some flyover state university nobody had ever heard of because that was all he could afford, THAT and taking care of his mother – was NOT cheap. Even then he didn't care if he was the top student; he was glad to have made it as far as he'd already had.

Still, she obviously thought he was out to get her, to show her up, which was the furthest thing from his mind.

Too bad, she was really good; somebody he'd looked forward to flying with.

He thought he'd met her long before either one had made it this far, some hot day after high school graduation – only she'd changed her hair.

If it _was_ her, he'd seen her while walking around at some small rural airfield eyeballing a fully restored B-17 that had flown in for the weekend to great fanfare. He'd driven 100 miles in his uncle's beat-up pickup truck to see it when he noticed a giggling horde of punk girls led by a girl with rainbow-dyed hair who was all arms and legs and couldn't keep her hands off of the elderly bomber's burnished aluminum skin.

He'd watched as one of the girls handed her an envelope, which she then handed to the B-17's crew after counting out the bills inside, and then they'd all jumped up and down squealing and taking pictures as she'd pulled on a too-big flight suit and climbed aboard, unruly rainbow mane spilling out in all directions under the vintage flight helmet.

Barely able to afford the gas for the trip in his uncle's perpetually thirsty old truck, Mike sat eating his lunch of dry baloney sandwiches and drinking tap water that his mother had packed for him that morning on the slowly cooling hood of the borrowed vehicle, watching the B-17 ponderously taxi into position before majestically taking off.

As the polychrome mob of giggling girls fluttered around the hot asphalt runway waiting for their lucky friend to finish her ride of a lifetime, one of them, a tiny girl with unruly hot pink curls paused, looked him up and down, waved, and then ran over giggling, saying, "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie! What's your name?"

Startled by her appearance, her constant motion, and that... name - who the hell names their kid after dessert, much the less one made out of fingers? Mike had slid off the hood of the old truck so that he towered over her mumbling, thumbs hooked in his worn back pockets, "Mike." at the top of her bright, fluffy head.

His name obviously sailed right past her; the girl was already pointing at the beautiful, aging beast soaring overhead, free hand shading her eyes, "Look at that old plane isn't it amaz - oh wow," she squealed, "Are you ever TALL whatareyou7feet? 8? That's my friend Rainbow up there - she's tall too, we just graduated. DidItellyouyou'rereallyreallytall?"

"Yeah. Right." Embarrassed at having the obvious pointed out once again, this time by a bubblegum colored ding-a-ling who smelled like she'd rubbed a cupcake in her hair, Mike watched the beautifully aging beast lumbering majestically above the airfield, bank and turn, piston engines gulping and grinding up the air supporting it. He had no idea who these girls were and really wanted no part of them.

Poke poke poke, "I said... are you even listening to me?" He looked down, Pinkie Puddin' or whoever she was was staring up at him, smiling a wide smile as she reached up to poke him in the shoulder, "I SAID, Rainbow was thinking of going into the Navy - she wants to learn how to fly."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that, too." Mike backed away, still looking up at the B-17 as it roared overhead, briefly draping it's cruciform shadow over them both as it passed - why couldn't she take a hint and leave him alone? Might as well. He'd only enough money stashed away to get through one year of university somewhere cheap, enlisting might help get him through the remaining three. Yeah, right, like he'd qualify for flight training. He had a better shot at becoming an aircraft mechanic...

"Cool, I bet you'll train together!" Pinkie bounced up and down before turning and bouncing back to her friends, calling over her shoulder, "You'll really like her, she's really super nice!" as the B-17 came to an equally majestic landing.

Mike drove back into the little county seat to the recruiting station across the street from the shabby Victorian courthouse in the center of the town square. Only Rainbow'd got to the recruiting office before him, still surrounded by her giggling bevy of brightly colored friends, hollering as she came out the front door, "I did it! I did it! _"_

Four years later Mike thought he saw someone who looked a lot like her, still all arms and legs, climbing off a bus at Basic, carrying a beat-up guitar, an equally worn looking diary, and a brand new light blue suitcase while wearing an Embry-Riddle t-shirt.


	9. The Immelman Turn 8

That night Rainbow dreamed of Equestria.

She teased Spike, when she wasn't teaching Fluttershy new flying moves, picked apples with Applejack and Daring Do with Twi, or pranking with Pinkie Pie when she wasn't helping Rarity with gems, and…

...Tank.

Oh God, she missed him.

She'd said she'd never leave Tank, but she did.

She loved the old guy, but she'd had to leave him behind in the Pony world. Twi and Spike took good care of him but…

She rolled over on her bunk in the dorms, crying in her sleep.

A few hours later, despite her headache upon waking, Rainbow Dash was determined to make nice with Schmidt.

Ummmm, _almost._

"Ok, let's get this over with," she said while running a preflight check on her assigned Tomcat, twin engines blazing with heat and light at sunrise, seemingly as eager to take off this morning as she was.

Permission to taxi onto one of the runways came over her headset. Lt. Dash steered the multi-million dollar aircraft, testing her flaps one final time before positioning herself for takeoff. She looked over. Lt. Schmidt had already positioned his 'cat for takeoff on the second airstrip and was patiently waiting for permission to launch.

Getting along with the big bore would have to wait until after both of them were airborne, she thought as the two of them took off at the same time, the sound of their engines echoing off of the peaks on the horizon.

Upon reaching cruising altitude, Lt. Dash ventured over her headset, "I have a Bachelor's in Aeronautical Engineering from Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida – your turn!" She glanced over at Mike's Hornet.

"I have a Bachelor's in Aviation Mechanics with a minor in military history from UCM." Crackled through her earpiece.

"Ok. Finished!"

"Fine by me." was his only response.

They continued the assignment with little or no exchanges beyond what was strictly necessary; both seemed to prefer it that way.


	10. The Immelman Turn 9

That night while eating dinner in the Officer's Mess, Rainbow sat by herself listening to the distant sounds of aircraft taking off and landing and writing in her diary between bites – Twilight interrupted her account of the day's events with something amazing: she'd been researching portals when she discovered that there was one on the base not far from the dorms. If Rainbow had time, could she go and check it out for her?

Would she? Would she ever! After putting away her diary and turning in her meal tray, Rainbow Dash decided to take her usual evening jog in the direction of the possible portal rather than on the road that paralleled the main landing field.

The portal was hard to miss once she knew what to look for: it was part of the pedestal of a monument of a WWI Marine, and one from WWII holding up a bronze flag that she passed every morning on her way to the Officer's Mess. Though she wanted to dive into the smooth mirror-like surface of the portal right then and there, she couldn't just go galloping off into Equestria at random. Not if she didn't want to jeopardize her career!

The next morning, having easily gained a weekend pass (after looking around to make sure nobody was paying attention) Lt. Dash, carrying her duffle bag (she'd decided to leave her guitar behind), left.


	11. The Immelman Turn 10

Once at the monument, Rainbow Dash pulled out the diary and wrote, "Coming soon!" to Twi. As she put the book away in her duffle bag which was bulging with human-world gifts for her friends, she noticed Schmidt out for a morning's run on the road that straight-lined past the two bronze Marines and their flag and sighed impatiently. She'd have to wait for him to go on past before diving into the portal – no use having to explain THAT to somebody she didn't care to talk to should he catch her in the act.

Irritated, Rainbow Dash leaned against the pedestal of the monument, duffel bag at her feet, arms folded. Schmidt was as conscientious and methodical a runner as he was a pilot, long arms and legs pumping up and down with deliberate intent, breathing steady and measured, blue eyes fixed straight ahead of him in the zone of a fanatical runner.

Borrrrr-inggggggggg!

"I bet he even SWEATS by the book!" Rainbow grumbled as he rhythmically thumped past, "Good riddance!" she added as he loped towards the nearby intersection before taking a right towards the dorms. She slung her duffle over her shoulder and got ready to step through the portal and home.

Only she stopped mid-step, grinning devilishly.

She had an idea. One that would make up for all the wrongs in this strange world.

One that would tip the balance in her favor.

"Yo, Mike!" she called. "Come here for a second!"

Lt. Schmidt slowed down mid-intersection, "What?" he yelled back, jogging in place.

This was too good to be true. "Just get over here— you have GOT to see this!"

Her unasked for competition, her wing _person_ jogged back towards her across the lawn the surrounded the monument. How could he be so, so, _gullible_? As he approached, Rainbow Dash stuck out a cross-trainered foot and tripped him so that he tumbled headfirst into the portal with a yell.

And then she dove in after him, but not before writing in the diary, "P.S. Sorry! I couldn't stop myself!"


	12. The Immelman Turn 11

Rainbow Dash shot out of the mirror portal, easily landing on four hooves beside Mike who lay on his back, eyes closed and panting, duffle bag landing heavily behind her.

Her P.T. clothes were now a Wonderbolt uniform, leaving her cutie mark exposed. She stretched first one blue wing, and then the other, opposite back leg extended to help keep her balance, dancing a little on the brightly polished crystal flooring at the sheer joy of being in her original form - oh, it was good to be home!

And, her roots were showing, but here it didn't matter. Hooves clattering, she crouched, launching herself into the air of the lofty, darkened room, circling among the unlit chandeliers because she could, "Whoo-hoo, I'm back!" she yelled, banking off a wall before circling the room once more.

The lights came on and her friends yelled, "Surprise!" as they trotted in looking up at her as she hovered in the middle of the room beneath the main chandelier.

The unexpected party with it's flurry of excited greetings and distribution of gifts got louder and louder in the big chamber until Applejack coughed loudly from the sidelines where she stood over where Mike, no, a large, muscular pale gold stallion lay. He'd opened his blue eyes and was staring wildly around him, black hooves thrashing in the air helplessly as he tried to stand up.

Chatter trailing off and gifts forgotten in the now awkwardly echoing room, Rainbow Dash and the other ponies turned and stared at the stranger as Applejack nudged at him like a newborn foal as he struggled to rise on the slick crystal until he clumsily gained all fours. Upright at last, he teetered, head down, breathing hard, the whites of his eyes showing, close-cropped golden mane and pale flanks dripping with sweat, staining his ponyfied flight suit with golden wings where a name tag should be on the left breast a darker blue.

Applejack stepped away from the panting, trembling Mike, glaring suspiciously at Rainbow Dash, "'Scuse me Dash," the tall Earth pony drawled, "But is this here stallion the best in ya'll's class on the other side— _amIright?_ " She gestured with one front hoof at their unexpected guest.

Fighting the urge to giggle, Rainbow Dash answered straight-faced while rolling her eyes, bored, "Puh-leeeeeease! Don't remind me!"

"Welp, if he is, _then why is he an Earth pony? And what in tarnation is he doin' here?"_


	13. The Immelman Turn 12

Mike had no idea what was going on, and he didn't like it. As he struggled to his now FOUR feet, he saw standing above him what looked like a tan pony arguing with what looked like a blue pony who reminded him of Lt. Dash. Worse yet, the blue pony had wings.

Ponies don't have wings.

Only Pegasus had wings and Pegasus was a myth.

Only here was a blue Pegasus, arguing in front of him.

Blue.

Mike's eyes rolled nervously, giving him two flat, separate views of the world. Blue.

A blue pony, winged or not, wasn't in the scheme of things in Mike's world, but she was blue, had wings, and was arguing with the tan pony who was wearing a cowboy hat (?) about him _not_ having wings or something.

Worse, a YELLOW Pegasus appeared as he lay trembling on the hard ground and dragged the blue Pegasus off to the side, whispering angrily.

A yellow Pegasus.

That whispered.

He took another go at standing, unfamiliar hooves clattering and scraping for purchase against the hard, polished surface he lay upon until the tan pony? Mare? Levered him to all fours with her head like one of his uncle's Quarter horses with a new foal so that he stood shivering and sweating, head down, wanting to vomit, but unable to for some reason.

As if blue and yellow Pegasi weren't bad enough, a white unicorn(?) with a purple(?) curly(?) mane sidled up to him, batting her eyelashes, "I'm Rarity. What's you're name?" she cooed.

Mike raised his head, unfamiliar nostrils flaring, leaning back so far that he nearly fell over as what he thought was Lt. Dash glared at "Rarity" before she suddenly started laughing. Spreading her impossible wings, the blue Pegasus flew out a nearby window, almost crying she was laughing so hard.

Sweating, Mike managed to keep his feet under him, clattering against the hard, slippery floor, as he tried to walk away from the mob of candy colored curiosity only to fall heavily to the crystal(?) floor.

He would have screamed, "What is with this place?" only it came out as a series of heavy, whinnying gasps as a purple pony with wings _and_ a horn helped him to his feet, no _hooves_ , so that he stood breathing heavily, legs splayed out around him for balance.

"I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle." She smiled up at him, "Welcome to my palace."

Mike hung his head miserably, ears limply askew.

Either he was nuts or about to die.

Probably the former over the latter, he decided, only to give a startled bucking jump which made his hooves skid on the hard, gleaming floor, sending him sideways as a pink fuzz-ball shrieked, "Hiiiiiiiiiiiii!" in one of his drooping ears.

"God, don't do that!"

"Who's God? I'm PINKIE!"

"Never mind." He gasped, sweat dripping into his eyes from his closely cropped… mane?


	14. The Immelman Turn 13

Soaring high over Equestria, Rainbow gloated: she's just given Mike the same misery he gave her – it was only fair. All right, _maybe_ it was a little overkill, but he _deserved_ it… right?

Right?

 _Whaaaateverrrrrrrrr!_

She banked and catching a high thermal, glided back to Twi's castle, and hovered just outside of the window she'd exited earlier, listening to Mike hyperventilate in great, sobbing gasps. Well, Pinkie Pie had that effect on the unsuspecting; serve him right for not paying attention and letting Her Pinkness sneak up on him. "Not that I care." she told herself. "He had it coming."

"Lets get you to Sweet Apple Acres, sugah cube. This is no place for an Earth pony or whatever you are, right now." She heard Applejack say, followed by more heavy breathing and the sound of hooves scrabbling on crystal.

Shrugging, Rainbow Dash decided to see what Ponyville was doing since she had left. Furling her wings, she dove towards the distant ground, only to brake at the last second before trotting away on nonchalant hooves, wings neatly folded across her back in search of Sugar Cube Corner.


	15. The Immelman Turn 14

Sugar Cube Corner had obviously turned into a chain since she'd left for the human world.

Noooooo, not really. For some reason she was wandering in circles and had passed it at least three times.

The sky, no, the WORLD darkened and then brightened almost intolerably and suddenly the street around her was empty. Alone, she looked up, squinting against the blaze of light that was Celestia, who hovered above her with strong wings, single horn sharp with magic, ethereal mane and tail drifting and swirling in a cloud of raw magic even as the moon rose early beside her.

No, that was Luna, her sister's reverse mirror image in blue and silver.

Uh-oh.

She'd really blown it this time if BOTH rulers of Equestria had decided to intervene. Feeling hot all over, Rainbow Dash dropped her head, wings limp on either side of her body, waiting for the worst of it.

"Rainbow Dash, a fine flier, but cruel to others." Rainbow's head drooped even further, her wings not far behind.

The blue Pegasus winced: Celestia had a way cutting through the nonsense when she was truly disappointed. Judging by her bluntness, the sun princess was very, very disappointed in Rainbow Dash.

"Sometimes it's hard to forgive and be forgiven." Luna added, finishing for her sister.

If Rainbow's wings could have fallen off and blown away like two dead leaves at this moment, they would have. She closed her eyes, waiting for more gentle, but firm scolding.

But it never came. Instead the sun returned to normal and the moon went back to bed. She raised her head, the street was once again filled with ponies going about their business

Unsettled by her encounter with her rulers, Rainbow entered Sugar Cube Corner to stifle her unease with a muffin.

It tasted good, but not… really. She glanced out the big glass window, Starlight waved a hoof at her in passing from the sidewalk.

Rainbow waved back half-heartedly, only to find herself standing on a cloud that had turned black and spat lighting at a grey Pegasus with wonky yellow eyes, who dazedly muttered, "I just don't know what went wrong." before falling over, frizzled mane and tail smoking.

How she got up there, Rainbow had no idea. She swallowed her bite of muffin and looked around herself wildly.

"Rainbow, do you need help?" someone called.

Startled, Rainbow Dash shook out her mane and looked down, Starlight's concerned face was looking up at her from the street far below.

"I… I guess so."


	16. The Immelman Turn 15

Applejack's kindness aside, Mike just wanted to go home. Wherever that was.

 _When Mike was little, before the accident, momma was a cleaning lady, and dad was always… busy. His uncle always had more of everything, and brought him to an air show when he was 10. That was the first time he wanted to fly._

 _Flying was beautiful. Flying was perfect._

 _His uncle offered to help him pay for college as long as Mike helped out._

 _He got his first of many shit jobs doing security at a shady kiddie restaurant company, leading to more shit jobs, teaching him patience – you can always stand a miserable situation if you have a goal, a plan; his had been simply to fly with the shit jobs a means to an end, and not the end itself beyond brute every day survival pushing a mop because your dad doesn't give a shit. In fact you don't even know where dad is and momma is all but killing herself trying to keep the both of you fed, under a roof, and off Welfare._

 _Getting his Bachelor's had been the same – subjects which bored him in High School suddenly became necessary tortures while holding down 30 hours or more and carrying a full course-load so that he could graduate as quickly as possible— doubly so even as he helped mom pay their bills and for his private pilot's license. But he'd managed. He'd managed._

 _He'd managed during his third year of university to pass the physical, to get a Navy scholarship, to qualify for Officer training, for flight school – it had been grueling, he'd managed, he'd managed, coming out on top without even realizing it._

 _Then along came rich little Rainbow Dashie with her candy-colored hair and candy-colored friends._

 _And with a name like that, no doubt given to her by her doubtlessly rich homeschooling regular food isn't good enough for them they have to eat expensive organic enlightened hippie parents, somehow managing to slide through everything, scoring a prestigious education at Embry-Riddle while he'd had to make do with Flyover-U and cleaning toilets at the stadium after the big games – she was over-competitive, reckless, and for some reason, jealous of him when all he'd done was work his ass off, never once taking his eyes off the prize so that he was the best, with her a close, surprisingly skilled runner-up dogging his… tail. (Which was now swishing nervously.)_

 _All right, so he'd been a good sport about it, he'd been polite, minding his own business, keeping it professional, with her hating him all the while for no damned good reason other than he was in her way._


	17. The Immelman Turn 16

Watching without seeing, Mike stared past the tall…. uhhhh… mare? that had rescued him from the overload that was Twilight Sparkle's palace working in the orchard that surrounded the barn-looking house as he nervously chewed on the wooden windowsill with big square unfamiliar teeth – it was either that or pace clattering back and forth on the rough wooden floor— so what the hell had Lt. Dash done to him? Slipped something illegal into his coffee during dinner in the Officer's Mess and risking a career-destroying court martial and a dishonorable discharge on her part if she got caught?

"You're doing it wrong, Big Mac. You'll break it if you turn it too fast!"

Mike turned his head away from the window, and stared over his rump with one eye at a massive red stallion that wouldn't have been out of place in a Budweiser Beer commercial who stood stolidly beside the wooden contraption he'd been operating with his mouth as an ancient looking green pony nagged at him. Based on a visit to a living history museum long ago and world's away, it resembled a "weasel", a device used to wind yarn which made a loud "pop" every so many yards.

Why creatures with built-in fur coats would want yarn was beyond Mike. Anyway, the crank was designed for an equine mouth, not human hands, which was almost interesting now that he was able to calm himself and start paying attention to his new environment, bizarre as it was.

Clumsily turning, he carefully staggered over, "The gear's shot – there are teeth missing and the worm gear's cracked. You'll need to make new ones.

The old mare looked Mike up and down, "Wull I'll be durned. It speaks!"

"Ee-yup." The large red stallion shook his mane before snatching a mouthful of hay from a wall-mounted manger.

"So, how d'ya'all know about this stuff? This here is a Unicorn thing, not an Earth pony thing." She slowly trotted around her large, loudly chewing grandson, head cocked and eyes brightly intent. "Do you know how to fix this "gear" thing? If you do, we thank y'kindly – it's never worked quite right."

Well, maybe all those long, hot afternoons spent helping his uncle with his lawn mower repair business hadn't been such a waste of time according to Mike's dad. Grateful for the distraction, he edged closer, both eyes peering down his now long face so that his vision switched unsettlingly from monocular to binocular, "…maybe."


	18. The Immelman Turn 17

Back on the ground, profound apologies made to Derpy, and black cloud dispersed, Starlight Glimmer sipped from her Starbucker's coffee, "Sooooo, you had a dream and this "Mike" (what in the world is a "Mike"? Is it some sort of plant?) had it too, am I right? Only he worked harder or was born with more ability than you, or something – so he wound up on top and got in your way... and you did something about it that wasn't terribly nice. That's the way it looks to me." She took another, longer sip, before cautiously adding, "But, that's just my opinion."

"I don't know mine any more." Rainbow said glumly, her chin resting on the table beside her untasted iced white mocha with white chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles on top. "It was easy apologizing to Derpy for what my black cloud did to her accidentally. But how do you even begin to apologize for what I did to somebody whose only fault was to be better at something than me without even trying?"

With one hoof Starlight nudged the plate of muffins that rested between them on the little sidewalk café table towards Rainbow Dash before saying, "I'll come with you if you like. Trust me, I have a LOT of experience with forgiveness."


	19. The Immelman Turn 18

Closely followed by Starlight Glimmer, Rainbow Dash nervously edged through Applejack's double barn doors. Granny Smith, Big Mac, and Mike looked up at her from where they had been studying the disassembled weasel on the floor.

"I'm sorry I've been so horrible." She mumbled as her head dropped so that she stared at the rough-cut boards between her hooves, unable to look anyone, particularly her wingperson, in the face without bursting into tears.

Mike staggered towards her, nearly falling over twice, but gaining confidence so that his hooves thudded loudly on the boards until he stopped in front of Rainbow and Starlight Glimmer. Slightly swaying, he stared down at her, face unreadable.

There was a long silence between them before he finally straightened, arching his neck so that he now towered over both fillies, as physically imposing as a stallion as he had been as a man. Rainbow Dash started edging backwards and stopped herself. Whatever he had to say to her, she deserved it and should stand her ground and take it like the Wonderbolt she was and the U.S. Navy fighter pilot she hoped to be.

"An apology? Is that REALLY all y'all got for me, an apology? An "I'm sorry?" Sorry for WHAT?" He started out level and low, but his voice rose as his head snaked forward, an accent she'd never heard from him before, ears plastered back against his head, "For being such'a rich, bitchy, jealous brat? Is this how y'all rebelled against y'hippie mommy and daddy? Or whatever you… you'all are – if this is all real and not somethin' you dropped in my coffee last night? All because I got in your way? An' this is what you did to me because of that? At least you could'a tried to beat me fair and square when I wasn't even competin', with whatever, you… WE are?!" Mike began stamping his back legs, kicking up clouds of dust in the golden late afternoon sunlight as he shouldered into her, "While you'all lazed around your all's whole privileged life playin' the guitar and gettin' in touch with y'feelings or whatever, I had to _work!_ I had to _study!_ Do you know how many toilets I had to clean to be able to afford my own education? Y'all tell me 'cause I lost count a long, LONG time ago!"

"Terlet? What's a terlet?" Granny Smith murmured to Big Mac. Big Mac twitched his hide, the pony way of shrugging. It was all the same to him.

Mike continued, head now extended like a snake, tail snapping like a whip, "I. Actually. Tried! Flyin' was m'only success – I worked hard to get to where I am and y'all took that from me by taking me to… to… wherever this hellhole is!" Snapping his teeth at Rainbow Dash, Mike reared, turning midway so that his backside was in her face. Both fillies stepped back, anticipating an angry kick, only Mike tried to walk with what little dignity he had left towards the back door of Applejack's family barn, stumbling on the low threshold on his way out into the orchard that surrounded the place.

Suddenly, Rainbow found herself alone in the bright cosmos.


	20. The Immelman Turn 19

Celestia, Luna, and Cadence trotted up to her out of the radiant gloom.

The sun princess came to a halt in front of Rainbow Dash, eyes dark with all the regret, pain, and loss accumulated during a lifetime that nearly spanned forever. And now this. Her horn glowed softly: Mike appeared, a half eaten windfall apple in his mouth, which he dropped in surprise so that it fell, rolling away into the darkness that surrounded them.

"We have found that a conflict has arisen." Tail and neck arched, the princess of the sun lightly cantered gracefully around Rainbow. Rainbow dropped her head, sidling away in her unwillingness to meet those beautiful, sad eyes. Celestia continued, "You hurt Mike, becoming euphoric from his pain and humiliation, _didn't_ you?"

Rainbow's ears drooped as she suddenly became very, very interested in her front hooves. Finally, "Yes, your Majesty." she mumbled, trying not to cry or let her back legs collapse out from under her.

Celestia halted, raised her shining head and studied the wary Mike, who attempted to back away from her, eyes rolling nervously, only to blunder over his own hooves. Cadence trotted up to him, lightly gripping his sweating neck between her chin and chest in the equine answer to a human hug. He relaxed, slightly as Celestia serenely added, "Mike, we are sorry we even allowed Rainbow Dash to pursue her dreams in your world, tipping the balance in the wrong direction and causing harm. As an apology, we can send you back with no memory of this having ever happened, if you so wish."

Shivering, Mike shook his head.

Cadence whispered in his ear as she led him away into the dark glow between the stars, "We really meant no harm. Can you forgive us our folly? Is our world really so terrible? Just say the word and we'll send you home as if it never happened."

He shook his head again.

Luna stepped forward, dark mane flowing in the starwind. She arched her neck as she watched Celestia lead Mike away into the darkness between the world, their rapidly receding hoofbeats echoing among the solar tides. She then looked down on the much shorter Rainbow Dash, "Harsh as it seems, we sisters have spoken to Captain Spitfire of the Wonderbolts.

Rainbow's wings stiffened and then drooped. She knew what was coming, but needing to hear it anyway even if it hurt.

"It is agreed, you're no longer fit to be a Wonderbolt. Nor will you ever be again – balance must be restored."

Rainbow staggered as if struck, but in doing what she'd done to a fellow flier, even if he had no wings of his own… she'd disappointed her Commander, no… she'd disappointed _everyone_. Her punishment was just.

Cadence who had returned alone from between the stars added, her voice cracking slightly, "I'm afraid you'll also have to choose between worlds. It's one or the other with no chance of ever returning."

The little Pegasus with the choppy, blackened rainbow mane and tail stood head down and trembling for what felt like forever.

Eventually she looked up, meeting Celestia's eyes, knowing her answer.


	21. The Immelman Turn 20

Mike was in trouble. _Big_ trouble.

It started with waking up sometime before dawn on the desert floor on the side of I-8 five miles west of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in his P.T. clothes. Absently picking up a half-eaten apple, which had been laying nearby on the dry, gritty desert earth, Mike started walking along with the early morning traffic roaring past him to his left with the rising sun at his back as he finished it.

Had he not been so dazed, he would have noticed that the apple was remarkable, a delicate lavender, with a golden blush to it.

It tasted of cinnamon and something else indefinable. Eventually he tossed the core into the dry ditch and slightly euphoric, started jogging.

Checking his watch about the time the sun peeked over the San Jacintos, Mike stopped his long, steady lope.

According to the date, it was Monday morning.

He took the watch off and shook it.

Which changed nothing. The second hand ticked doggedly around the dial as the increasing morning traffic thundered past.

It should have been Saturday morning.

The day's heat would be hours away making it a comfortable run around the base behind the main runways with their long stretches of low traffic roadways.

Instead, it was 06:00, Monday. He should have been airborne or in the classroom, not running along the side of the desert Interstate…

…off base.

…like an idiot.

…without so much as his wallet, dog tags, and I.D., or even a weekend pass.

Trying not to panic, Lt. Schmidt resumed his steady pace west, sorting out the bizarre images now fading in and out of his head. Something about candy colored ponies with wings… it was obvious that either he was having some sort of psychotic break or that somebody had drugged him and for reasons only known to them, dumped him out in the desert.

Mike seriously hoped that it was the latter and not the former. Either way, he was in big trouble.

He was picked up by a California Highway Patrol cruiser sometime around 06:30 as the day began to heat up in earnest, and delivered to the front gate where he was taken into custody for a little thing known as "Failure to Repair".

Oh.

Shit.


	22. The Immelman Turn 21

Day 2 of Lt. Schmidt's slow-motion nightmare was interrupted by Lt. Dash in dress whites. He'd already testified that he'd awakened on the side of I-8 in his P.T. clothes not knowing how he'd got there even as more winged ponies trotted across the back of his mind, giggling.

They also had wings. Wings that sparkled, and he really didn't want to explain to anybody that a few of them also had horns.

As he'd sat there waiting for the axe to fall, she'd testified that she'd clearly seen him out for a run as she was leaving the Station for the weekend on a two day pass to visit friends in L.A. And that she'd seen him talking to a woman in civilian dress later on near the Officer's Club while waiting for a ride. But that had been none of her business, it wasn't really like she'd been paying attention. But the woman had been blonde and, ummmmm, really well-endowed. But it was none of her business how Lt. Schmidt spent his free time, so she'd not really got a good look at the woman.

Now THAT Mike didn't remember at all.

He'd blinked, startled as a pearl pink woman with hair that was a free flowing swirl of yellow, pink and purple and an elaborate tattoo on her forehead appeared over his CO's shoulder. Smiling, she'd waved a hand at the back of the man's head. His CO blinked, shook his head, looked down at the papers on the desk in front of him, and said, "The results of the blood and urine tests taken within 24 hours of your failure to report have come back. There are traces of what may possibly be the drug Flunitrazepam among the results, explaining your initial disorientation Monday morning at roughly 06:45."

All right, maybe he'd stopped in after his run at the Officer's Club and got a beer…

…and somebody with a sick sense of humor had dropped a roofie… the pink woman smiled at him, her large eyes were purple. Did roofies have that effect? He looked over at where Lt. Dash stood, testifying. She seemed to be the only other person who could see the pink woman standing behind their CO… "But what happened in the time period between Lt. Dash's seeing Lt. Schmidt talking to the woman in civilian dress and Monday morning?"

The pink woman face-palmed, and abruptly disappeared in a flutter of… was that wings? Only to be replaced by a woman with skin so dark blue it appeared nearly black and a cloud of mingled black, indigo and lavender hair, which drifted around her head like a storm cloud. Mike shook his head, blinking. Lt. Dash's eyes were fixed on the blue woman. Since when did his wingmate have magenta eyes? He remembered them as brown.

Not that he'd paid much attention earlier.

He then gasped, finding himself, hat under his arm, standing outside in the hall with no memory of having walked there. Lt. Dash stood nearby furiously whispering with the blue woman who had a similar facial tattoo as the pink woman, only it was… silver? while personnel walked past as if the three of them weren't even there.

"…but I told the truth, uh, sort of. I did see him out running. Doesn't that count for something?"

The blue woman shook her head, dark wings echoing the motion, "It's up to them. This is serious. Your selfishness may very well cost this… stallion, I MEAN… _MAN_ his dream. And you never did finish your apology. What happens to him is up to the people in that room. The least you can do is finish what you started! I know what it's like, when I was NightMare Moon, I was scared no one would ever forgive me. Trust me, I nearly destroyed the world and was still forgiven."

Lt. Dash looked at him, and then away. The blue woman gave her a firm nudge in Mike's direction and then disappeared. A quick glance through the window saw whoever she was whispering into the ear of Mike's CO.

"To think," Lt. Dash began as the human traffic flowed around them, "That this all started with a graduation party." She stared down at her highly polished white dress shoes before looking him in the eye. "Ever since I was a foal, I wanted to be in the Wonderbolts."

Wonderbolt? What the hell's a Wonderbolt?

"And when I got in, I proved the Sonic Rainboom theory – but it wasn't enough."

Also, what the hell's a Sonic Rainboom?

Lt. Dash continued, her voice speeding up, "But you humans had already figured it out – you used machines so Rainbooms were nothing new to you – once I saw what humans knew, what humans could do, I wanted in!"

The blue woman reappeared and nudged Lt. Dash, "Go on, there's more to say."

"I wanted to be the best here, too. You got in the way." Lt. Dash looked past Mike's shoulder, not quite meeting his eyes as she quietly added. "I acted unprofessionally. And I have damaged your career because of my jealousy."

"Go _on._ " The blue woman nudged Lt. Dash again, her eyes serious.

"I'm so, so, _sorry_." His wingmate whispered very, _very_ , quietly, adding "We're doing what we can to make it right."

Mike blinked. They were back in the hearing room as if the past five minutes had never happened.


	23. The Immelman Turn 22

"Due to extenuating circumstances, Lt. Dash's testimony, and your exemplary record with the United States Navy to date, this board of inquiry has come to the decision that any and all charges will be dropped. You will return to duty once you are cleared to fly. Dismissed."

Lt. Schmidt sagged slightly in his chair, relieved, only to straighten.

Thank God it was over.


	24. The Immelman Turn 23

It was over. Rainbow Dash had done her best: Mike had been let off – even if she'd played fast and loose with the truth because who would believe… and she owed it to Celestia, the others, to protect the portals into her world in spite of her having chosen to go into exile here.

So why did she still feel so ashamed of herself? (and... so… alone?)

Dash shoved the key into the lock of her room in the dorms, quickly stepped inside and locked the door behind her, leaning on it, looking up at the poster of a F/A-18E Super Hornet in flight she'd taped to the ceiling over her bunk.

If the truth ever got out, thanks to her letting her ego get underfoot, tripping both herself and Schmidt up, it would all fall in somehow, she'd get kicked out… or worse.

Maybe it was time she gave up. This was, after all, a big world. Surely there was a place for her here after dropping out of the program – somewhere? Anywhere?

Still in her dress whites, Lt. Dash pulled her duffle out of the closet and started packing up her books, her music, and what few civilian clothes she'd accumulated over the years until she reached her guitar, which sat untouched at the back of her closet in it's battered case.

It really wasn't her guitar, but the human Dash's first, given to her as a goodbye present the day she got on the bus to Newport, RI for AOCS. Reminded of something, Dash stood in her room, the worn case in her arms, debating. Finally, she opened the case. Pinned to the worn fabric was a note, which read, "Call me if you need me." followed by 333.867.5309.


	25. The Immelman Turn 24

Rainbow Dash finished tapping the number into her smart phone. She then sat waiting, listening to the little device reach out into the world, searching for the number's destination. Eventually: "Hello?" there was a pause, "Hey, Rainbow!"

"Dash?"

"Yeah, it's me, it's _us!"_ Another pause, and then, "Dash, you never call unless there's something going on. Are you ok?"

Rainbow Dash sat there in the darkness. She'd fidgeted around the little room with it's bunk beds, desk, pictures of friends and planes and closet full of uniforms well past sundown, not quite sure if what she'd just been through warranted a call. Finally she said, "I did something stupid."

The original human Dash was silent on the other end, and then, "I know us well enough _not_ to ask."

Still, the dam was broken and as with a quickly draining lake, the words tumbled out, "I really, _really_ screwed up this time. I let things get out of control and I hurt somebody, maybe even hurt his career – he won't forgive me and I don't know what to do except quit."

The other Dash was quiet, deep in thought. Rainbow could tell because she could hear the faint, rhythmic clicking of her mirror twin's fingernails on the hard case of the cell phone hundreds of miles away. Finally, cautiously the other Dash cautiously ventured, "Maybe you should talk to him one more time."


	26. The Immelman Turn 25

Two days later, Lt. Schmidt had been cleared to fly after light duty filing papers when he wasn't answering the phone in Tower Ops. Dash had seen him through the glass windows of the administration office, large hands meticulously sorting through papers. She'd knocked on the glass and given a hesitant wave on her way to the hangers. He'd looked up and right through her before going back to his assigned task.

And now he was back in the cockpit on the other half of the twin runways, close enough for her to recognize him in spite of his mask and helmet, pointedly ignoring her as he awaited for the signal from the tower for both of them to take off.

A few minutes and they were both airborne on their way to a quick dual practice strafing run over the desert, no big deal.

Still, the radio silence beyond the bare minimum needed for the joint exercise bothered Dash.

As they banked over the Pacific entering the run, she cautiously ventured, "Sorry I was such a bitch." Apologies were one thing, but as an instructor was listening in, it wouldn't hurt to keep things vague.

Lt. Schmidt signaled to her to take the lead and she piloted the Tomcat smoothly into the run, taking out the target with a few efficient bursts before climbing back to cruising altitude, Schmidt joining her off starboard as they headed back out over the ocean for the next run.

She picked up where she'd left off. "Sorry I dumped you off on strangers and laughed about it last weekend. It wasn't funny and it wasn't fair."

Still silence aside from what was strictly necessary to continue the exercise.

"And I'm REALLY sorry about Rarity flirting _at_ you, and I should have warned you about Pinkie Pie – she's kind of hard to be around until you get to know her better. Even then, she can be a bit… loud."

Dash took a quick glance upwards where Schmidt's Tomcat held position. His masked and helmeted head took a quick gander at her before going back to staring ahead.

Well, that was an improvement.

Somewhat.

"Here's to getting this school over with, graduating and never having to work with each other again?" She mumbled, forgetting about the mic, "I can't go back to Equestria, and if I quit the Navy, where would I go? Might as well…" She looked back over at Lt. Schmidt's aircraft in surprise.

A black outline against the early morning sun, the knife-edged outline of his F-14 held steady, but Mike was singing, an old song the other Dash had played for her on her dad's old stereo system, a black disk that held, of all things music, but it was about… flying.

Lt. Dash hadn't understood half the words, but the feeling of ecstatic joy high above the ground twined among the notes had spoken to her then in some guy named Al Stewart's voice as it did now in Mike's untrained tenor:"…fly, fly, to the western sky, where the fog banks shift and the danger lies. Why, why would you never learn, that you won't come back from the Immelman Turn…"

They banked together, sun now at their backs as they sped inland, Dash letting Mike surge ahead towards the target, with her adding, "…oh, you see things differently, and the farmboys wait for joyrides in the clearing…"

The target came into view and they sped towards it, one after the other, nap of the earth, "…there never was one like you, who knew that way to fly…"

First one, then the other, fired, smooth, controlled bursts, "…when the engine stalls, you start to spin, you won't get out of this. A hush comes to the crowd as you go falling…"

They rose in tandem, banking for another run as the instructor's voice crackled over the mic, "Good job, but stop fooling around – time to let somebody else have a go!"

"Affirmative!" Trying not to giggle, and finally feeling at peace with herself, Rainbow Dash finished slightly behind Mike, "There never was a one like you, who knew that way to fly, but you won't come back from the Immelman Turn!" even as she had in one way or another, come back from an Immelman Turn of her own.

Boomf! ("Aw, shit!")

Her wings had manifested themselves for the first time in a week under her flight suit in the cramped cockpit.

Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.


	27. Epilogue

Dear Princess Celestia,

Thank you for letting us use the book to talk to Rainbow Dash in the human world.

Rainbow tells me she graduated in second place in her class, I'm so proud!

She tells me that nobody besides her and Mike (Mike. What a funny name! Is it something you eat? Is it something you wear?) seem to remember an incident involving a purple girl, or even that, ahem, _blue girl._

Mike and Rainbow Dash are to be assigned to the same carrier to train (whatever _that_ is) as a team. (Mike graduated with the top score – I'm so happy his encounter with us didn't ruin his chances! He's still better than Dash, _but don't let her know you know!)_

Sorry that I haven't written sooner, but I've been busy. Your student, always, and fellow princess,

 _Twilight Sparkle_


	28. Tailhook 1

_USS George Washington, Persian Gulf, 20-_

Air Boss Commander Bob Cuene watched from the Pri-Fly level of the super carrier George Washington's island as first Pony Girl and then Cheapskate landed one after the other, tailhooks catching the arresting wire at the last second, bringing their F-14 Tomcats to abrupt halts on the airstrip running the diagonal of the flight deck before being rolled off the runway for parking after patrolling the no-fly zone over Syria the last six hours.

Cuene checked the roster. Both pilots had been accepted into the prestigious F/A 18 Hornet training program at NAS Lemore. He and squad commander Carol Kreig wanted to personally inform and congratulate them on their new assignment. He'd had his doubts about both of them when they'd first been assigned to the George Washington right out of training; doubts confirmed when first Pony Girl and then Cheapskate buzzed the Washington's island on their first day in country, causing him to spill hot coffee down his shirt. After he and Commander Kreig raked them both up and down both sides over the coals, the two settled in with no further incidents.

Still, there were rumors about those two who looked like something that stepped out of a recruiting poster. Both pilots were adults, whatever the truth was didn't concern the Air Boss or Kreig so long as it was discreet and stayed below deck without affecting with what went on above deck. Then there was this: watching them from the second level of the island where it jutted up out of the flight deck while waiting for Kreig to join him, Cuene took a last swallow of coffee before handing the empty mug to a passing orderly. Any second now…

Three.

The two were now walking towards the island with it's bristling antenna across the gently heaving surface of the flight deck, shoulder to shoulder in the automatic loose-limbed gait of anyone who'd spent more than a day at sea.

Two.

A team of purple shirts hustled toward them dragging a refueling hose towards an EA-18G Growler.

One.

Instead of stopping aside to let the fuel handlers pass, the two pilots, helmets still on against the constant din of taking off and landing aircraft around them, sidestepped in tandem around the hustling grapes without breaking stride before continuing on their way to where the Air Boss and their squadron commander waited.

Ten minutes later, salutes given, congratulations tendered and handshakes passed around, Cuene and Kreig were discussing the newest roster standing by the steel railing surrounding Pri-Fly in a brief lull of noise. Pony Girl and Cheapskate had been teamed up more than he or Kreig liked. Cuene took a pen from his uniform pocket, started to scratch out Pony Girl's name where it was listed before Cheapskate's for the next day's mission, and then both officers yelled, "Shit!" at the retreating backside of a seagull, who had left an awful lot of it all over the clipboard, and, well, them – which was weird because seagulls generally weren't this far out from the shore.

Behind the closed doors of the elevator which disembarked near the informal dirty shirt Mess just under the flight deck where the thump of the steam catapult overhead hurling multi-ton aircraft off the flight deck every few minutes made everyone's meals dance, Lt.'s Dash and Schmidt exchanged high fives, with Lt. Dash bouncing around the enclosed space, "If you come out on top, I'll help you rip the rotten shingles off the roof of that dump of a stable you bought in Miramar."

"HOUSE." Schmidt firmly corrected her, "It's a HOUSE, not a stable. I clean it out. I fix a few things. I flip it to some boomer retiree with too much money for three times what I paid for it – easy money." He pulled out his smart phone and made a note of the bet. "If _you_ come out on top, I'll replace the carburetor and brakes on that two-wheeled death machine you call a motorcycle you bought used before we shipped out six months ago."

"It's not a deathtrap, it's vintage, _V.I.N.T.A.G.E."_ Lt. Dash, aka. "Pony Girl" rolled her eyes, "You know, like what you claim _your_ house is."

"If that bike kills you, I won't come to your funeral." Frowning, Lt. Schmidt recorded Lt. Dash's side of bet, adding, "— especially if it's held in Mr. Edville."

Lt. Dash gave him the finger and the two of them straightened as the door slid open.


	29. Tailhook 2

_9 months later, Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park, Central California, sunset._

Sitting on a redwood bench overlooking Pfeiffer Beach with a throbbing taped ankle, Rainbow Dash found it sort of weird to think that only that morning she and Lt. Schmidt had graduated yet again in a tie, this time in the cockpits of FA-18 Hornets.

The graduation ceremony had started with them all filing in, salutes were made, the pledge was spoken, awards were handed out, followed by speeches.

Long, drawn out speeches.

Bored, she'd been scanning the audience of other people's family, friends and colleagues in front of her while some Rear-Admiral exercised his lungs behind the flag flanked podium about something or other in one long drawn out drone when she'd noticed a set of familiar faces.

It had taken every last bit of discipline on her part to keep from jumping up and down and whooping before running into the very polite audience and hugging all of her surprise guests.

Noticing her fidgeting, an equally bored Lt. Schmidt had given her a discreet dig with his elbow from where he sat beside her on the platform. She'd settled down, willing the highly decorated drone in the white uniform covered in gold braid behind the podium at the front of the graduation platform to hurry up and finish already!

Then just as she thought's she'd burst, it was over, salutes were made, hands were shaken, and the latest crop of certified FA-18 pilots were dismissed to mingle with family and friends as caterers handed out cake and punch at the back of the auditorium.

All but dancing, Lt. Dash had done her best to keep her cool as she pushed through the crowd, only to be all but knocked over by a very enthusiastic Pinkie Pie with Cheese Sandwich in tow.

"Eeeeeeeeeee! IknewyoucouldoitIknewyoucoulddoit!" Pinkie in human form squealed, giving Dash a bear hug. "I love your outfit!"

"Easy babe, easy!" Cheese Sandwich, appearing as a young man with long dark hair in a tail and a tie with a cheese-shaped tie clip complete with mice on tiny springs laughed as he pretended to pull Pinkie off of Rainbow Dash, "Let the rest of us have a turn!"

Dress uniform hat knocked over one eye, Rainbow Dash laughed, straightening it, only to have somebody tap her on the back. She turned, didn't see anybody behind her who looked like they wanted her attention, and then, "Down here, silly!"

More squeals, and she stooped to give Scootaloo a big hug, half-lifting the pretty teenager in a long party dress out of her wheelchair before turning and giving Fluttershy and her mother, Mrs. Shy a big hug before a little nervously shaking hands with Mr. Shy.

Or she would have, except that the really boring Rear Admiral had pulled Mr. Shy aside near the punch bowl. The two older men were slapping each other's backs and laughing over cups of punch and slices of cake, surrounded by more older officers covered in decorations than she'd ever seen in one place outside of the parade grounds.

She also noticed Mike standing stiffly off to one side, gloves off, hat under his arm looking like he'd rather in a cockpit or drinking coffee behind a newspaper in the Officer's Mess. Excusing herself, Rainbow managed to escape her friends and headed his way, acutely aware that there was nobody there in the audience for him.

"Mike, Mike! I want you to meet some friends of mine!"

"Yeah." He said, scanning the crowd, "Guess he couldn't make it."

"Who?"

"My… never mind, I want you to meet somebody." He took her arm, steering her around the groups of chattering family and classmate to where a middle-aged but still extremely attractive woman sat in a wheelchair, a large black German shepherd service dog sitting upright beside her in a bright orange vest, "Mom, you made it… where's Uncle Joe?"

"I'm sorry Mike, he couldn't afford to come – but he asked me to give you this. " The woman handed Mike an envelope, which Mike pocketed, a subtle look of disappointment flashing across his face.

He hesitated, and then said, "Mom, I want you to meet a frie…"

"Agatha, and you brought Indigo!" Rainbow stooped, giving Mike's mom a big hug, "You saved my life that night! This lady did a great job adjusting the hem of my uniform skirts at the last minute while we were at Miramar last year so I didn't get nailed AGAIN for my skirt hem coming up over my knees during inspect– I had _no idea_ you were Mike's mom. Mike, is your dad here, too?"

"Mike's dad split when Mike was six."

"Oh. I'm so, so sorry!" Rainbow Dash backed away, face hot. Mike's face was carefully blank where he stood behind his mother's wheelchair.

The woman reached out and took Rainbow's hands in hers, a dazzling smile lighting her face, "No need to blush, hon." She had the same soft drawl, only more pronounced, as Mike. "It's an easy mistake to make!" Mike obviously got his looks from her.

"Lt. Dash." Mike frowned, "How do you know mom?"

Laughing, Agatha released Rainbow's hands, craning her neck so that she could look up at her tall son. "Mike, weren't you listening? Remember the alteration shop I opened in the exchange at Miramar just before you both were deployed last year? She came in just at closing with a panic rush job the first week I was open – all her new uniform pants and skirts were too short and she needed the whites first thing in the morning for an inspection. You must have been off dealing with that darned hoarder house you got burned on - I was up ALL NIGHT adjusting the hems on those things. Lt. Dash kept the "Orange is the New Black" DVDs and the coffee coming and took Indigo out for walks when he needed it, so I gave her a big discount." Agatha frowned, angling her upper body so that she watched something going on behind Rainbow Dash "Oh my… who's… that?" as a blast of mildew, Cheetos, and sweat reached them before the owner did.

Rainbow Dash, who was bending over to greet Indigo the service dog after asking permission, felt something hot and damp abruptly connect with her butt with a loud slap.

"Hey!" Face hot, Rainbow straightened, turned around, and glared at at the sweating man with a greasy peroxide blonde manbun straggling from the top of his balding head. He grinned up at her with orange teeth over three sagging double chins, thick legs bulging out of a pair of frayed cutoff sweatpants, belly struggling to escape a faded black sweat-soaked too-small Pokemon t-shirt, "Dashie, your savior is here – let me take you away from all of… this." With a disdainful look, he gestured expansively at the crowded auditorium with one pudgy hand while taking her arm with the other, leaving greasy orange marks on the sleeve of her white dress jacket.

"Zephyr." Lt. Dash all but snarled as she removed her arm from his grip while stepping back, "What the hell are _you_ doing _here?"_


	30. Tailhook 3

"Sorry Rainbow," Fluttershy scurried up behind her younger brother, "Dad made it clear Zephyr wasn't invited when he announced two days ago that he wanted to take us to see your graduation ceremony and that we should get ready, but he came… anyway."

The rest of it was a blur of Fluttershy and her mother leading the sputtering Zephyr away with Mr. Shy and the Rear-Admiral coming in for handshakes, "Congratulations Lt. Dash, your family must be very proud of you!"

"They're just friends of my family's."

"Ah." The man paused mid-shake, "Still, this is a wonderful day for all of you." He resumed, shaking everyone else's hands before saying, "Bob, everyone, if you'll excuse me, I think I see my wife over there."

Watching the Rear Admiral's retreating white-clad back, Rainbow turned, amazed, to Mr. Shy once the officer was out of earshot, "Mr. Shy, he called you Bob. He _knows_ you?"

Mr. Shy, with his trim white mustache and slim, upright figure which reminded Rainbow of David Niven, the guy from the old black and white movies, gave a diffident smile, "We go way back, Tom and I. We'll discuss it later. And now you, young man, we haven't been introduced."

Mike, handed his punch cup to his mother, stepping forward, hand extended, ears bright red. "Sir, it's an honor to meet you."

What was going on here? Rainbow started to ask, only to hear Fluttershy and Mrs. Shy both exclaim behind her, "Oh no, not again!" Mr. Shy turned, Mike's hand forgotten, his usually amiable face dark purple.

Zephyr had pushed ahead in the cake line and was piling not one but four pieces of cake onto his plate, a 2L bottle of Mountain Dew under one acne spattered arm as he reached for a fifth, a cookie in his mouth while the server glared at him over the beautifully arranged slices of cake.

Excusing himself, Mr. Shy strode over, taking Zephyr by one arm, clumsily dragging him out of the line before hustling him toward the doorway to the hall, "You were _warned_ …" The door closing behind them cut off of the rest of Mr. Shy's hard, flat voice and Zephyr's cake-muffled complaints.

The rest of the party stood looking at each other, Fluttershy blushing, holding her mother's hand murmured, "He's really gotten worse, hasn't he mom?"

Sighing, Fluttershy's mom closed her eyes while everyone looked at everyone else, or their shoes. Finally, Mike's mom spoke up, "Mike, could you please get me a piece of cake and some of that punch? I don't think Indigo can handle all those people right now – you can introduce me to all these nice people once you get back if Lt. Dash here doesn't want the job."

Relieved, everyone started talking at once, pausing briefly with sidelong glances as Mr. Shy came back into the auditorium, adjusting his sleeves and tie.

Zephyr was nowhere in sight, which suited Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy's father accepted a piece of cake and a cup of punch from a server before rejoining them, his quiet amiability restored, "Rainbow, we were hoping you could join us at Big Sur – we'd planned on having a little weekend family party in your honor, and it's Mrs. Shy's favorite place to go, but," he gestured at some of the other graduates gathered in one corner, "We understand if you already have plans with your classmates?"

"Come on, can't you come with us?" Scootaloo said around a mouthful of cake, "I've never been there before. Fluttershy says's it's really cool and I can rent a beach wheelchair!"

They'd already planned a last group camp out at Big Sur State Park an hour or so away, but… "Sure, why not?" She could always shuttle back and forth if she had to, right?


	31. Tailhook 4

"How's your foot?" Rainbow looked up, a little startled, Agatha, Mike's mom was wheeling herself over the gravel of nearby parking lot, a book in her lap, Indigo patiently trotting along beside her in his second best service dog coat - the one without a tie.

"Still hurts, think I need another Tylenol."

"I'm sure that… Zephyr, or whatever he calls himself, didn't mean to trip you in the parking lot."

Like hell, he did! Rainbow said inside her head, but trying to keep things light after spending the rest of the morning in one of the Station hospital's emergency room for x-rays in case she'd broken her ankle when she stumbled over Zephyr's big flip-flopped hoof, no, she corrected herself, foot, adding, "It was an accident. I wasn't looking where I was going when I was climbing into Mike's truck."

Mike's mother gave her a look that said , "Yeah, right." as she braked her chair beside the bench so that the two of them sat side by side overlooking the turquoise water of the little cove with it's waterfall and huge boulder with a natural tunnel bored through it by the waves.

Rainbow had been here during the Christmas holidays before some of the cadets from her training flight – a hard-earned weekend break from the grueling but exciting program spent hiking, horseback riding (weird) and hanging around the beach when they weren't fighting with the tents. Mike hadn't participated, which for some reason she found disappointing, instead opting to catch up on his sleep once he learned how much everybody had to chip in for the gas, food, and site rental.

Oh well, at least he got to see the place for himself now, once she'd hobbled out of the emergency room – the two of them sitting wordlessly in the cab of his truck for most of the trip across the farmland which surrounded NAS Lemoore. She could tell that Mike was fuming by the way his ears stayed red – he'd caught her just as she fell off the curb to the parking lot as the other graduates and her friends were climbing into their vehicles to head for Big Sur.

More at home in combat boots, she'd teetered, looking down just in time to see Fluttershy's younger brother's foot pull back as smirking, he tried to catch her.

Only Mike got to her first. The two men stared each other down, Mike steadying Rainbow until she could get her feet back under her, only to cry out, sitting down on the fast warming pavement clutching her ankle, feeling like an idiot.

Mike almost but didn't quite shove Zephyr out of the way, Zephyr tipping backwards into the side of Mr. Shy's car, his weight causing it to rock, and helped her back to her feet before helping her limp to a nearby bench.

Zephyr muttered "Blank flank!" as he heaved his bulk upright heaving his way past the sudden gathering of concerned family and friends to where she sat catching her breath, bowing elaborately while saying, "M'lady, please allow me to assist you-"

"I'm all right!" Rainbow snapped and then gasped, "I think I broke it!"

"That's enough, Zephyr." Mr. Shy knelt in front of her, "Can you move it?"

"Please allow me, I'm a fully licensed hairdresser. I know about these things." Grunting, Zephyr ponderously knelt in front of Rainbow, who at this point wanted everyone to go away before she burst into humiliating tears because a.) it hurt and b.) everybody had seen her stumble – she who had not two days before been doing high-gee sparring with one of her instructors at the stick of a multimillion dollar high tech aircraft with a full payload of ordnance over the California desert before chewing up derelict tanks without so much as a scratch, only to be felled by a damned regulation high heeled dress shoe!

"Zephyr," Mike heaved the bulkier man to his feet by the back of his shirt, firmly adding, "Go sit in your father's car."

"Make me."

"Happy to, _boy_." L'Marion, one of two other woman in the flight leaned into Zephyr's face adding pleasantly, "I seen whatchu did."

Mike suddenly released the Zephyr's Cheeto-dusted shirt so that he staggered, "Go. Sit. Down. In. Your. Father's. Car."

"You touched me- I'll press charges!"

"Go right ahead." Mike and now the rest of the class crowded around Zephyr, whose greasy manbun was quickly coming unraveled so that it spilled over his face like so much limp, overcooked spaghetti.

Shaking hair out of his eyes, Zephyr glared at all of them before snapping his orange-stained teeth at Mike and beating a hasty retreat to the back seat where he glared at everyone over a bag of Funyons after Mike jerked his chin at him.

Mr. Shy stood, clearing his throat, "Lt. Schmidt, I'm not familiar with this facility. Can you drive Lt. Dash to the nearest emergency room? I don't think her ankle's broken, but let's be sure."

"Please, don't let me ruin everybody's fun, go on ahead to the State Park." Rainbow said between gritted teeth as both Mike and L'Marion levered her to her upright and into the passenger side of Mike's little truck, "Owowowowowoow, that hurt – we'll catch up when we can!"


	32. Tailhook 5

Mike had vibrated in silence until she was released from the emergency room four hours later.

He'd then bought her lunch without getting any himself at the mom and pop burrito stand that shared a parking lot with the gas station halfway to Big Sur, mechanically shifting gears as they left the lot, arm resting on the open driver's side window because the air conditioning didn't work, set face in profile as the farmland turned into coastal forest the closer they got to the beach.

Tired, hungry and with an aching foot and a large bruised ego, Rainbow hadn't bothered to break the silence as she ate her vegan black bean and cheese burrito with nopalito salsa.

Now Mike was down below on the sand, shirtlessly pushing Scootaloo's promised beach wheelchair among the weaving bodies of a pickup sand volleyball game so that she could hit the ball over the net whenever it came her way. Rainbow smiled, remembering doing similar with the filly years before in Equestria, piggybacking her when cloud clearing duty after scheduled rainfalls because her stunted wings couldn't support her.

Mr. and Mrs. Shy sat in folding canvas chairs sipping wine, with Zephyr sullenly slumped on a nearby bench, spilling over the edges, glaring at the lithe bodies moving back and forth in front of him, drinking Mountain Dew from a fresh 2L bottle, hand moving steadily from a McDonald's bag to his mouth and back.

Well, let him sulk just so long as he stayed away from her!

"Mike's like a geode, rough on the outside, but quite… sparkly… on the inside." Agatha said with a smile, "While he calms himself down on the beach, would you like to see something?" She opened the book, which turned out to be a photo album. At their feet, Indigo gave a loud snuffle and rested his chin on his big black paws, eyes alert.

Rainbow started, just a little, and looked over at Agatha from where she had been staring down at the beach. Damn, she'd rudely forgotten Mike's mom was right next to her.

Agatha smiled, "Silly, really. I found this the other day when I was unpacking some things I brought with me from back East when I moved out here for good."

She passed the album to Rainbow, who opened it at random before exclaiming, "Oh my God, is that you?"

"'Fraid so." Agatha looked embarrassed, "I was the queen of the local county and then the Missouri State Fairs, and then Miss Missouri, and a couple of other small local pageants including Miss Sawdust. Don't ask." She looked away, "I even made it into the Miss America finals…"

"You, what?"

"I had to drop out when… I couldn't stop throwing up in the morning."


	33. Tailhook 6

"I don't get it." Rainbow said.

Agatha smiled ruefully and flipped the pages of fading, discolored photographs where a much younger Agatha towered at least 6'3" over everyone around her in heels, with or without an assortment of tiaras, "I played with fire. Mike was the result – he was such a pretty baby." She murmured.

Rainbow, who had been watching a flashy red convertible pull into the lot, pause and then turn around before speeding away, dismissively glanced down at where Mike was now carrying Scootaloo on his shoulders, wheelchair pushed aside, so that she had a better chance at serving the ball, and glanced over at his mother. They had the same profile, only Mike's was stronger, masculine "Ummmmm…"

"Don't worry, I was glad to drop out. Being the prettiest girl in the Bootheel wasn't how I wanted to live my life. Mike's father pushed me into the pageant circuit, said it would help pay for college. Then things got out of hand and, well..."

The two women stared out over the Pacific where the sun was just touching the watery horizon before Agatha continued: "I did what so many girls do where we're from. I got knocked up and dropped out, marrying Mike's father and giving up any dreams I had because reality was 3 a.m. feedings when it wasn't an angry unemployed husband full of beer… that's Mike's father." Agatha tapped on another photo with a slim, well-manicured finger. "It's our only family portrait – we had it taken at Sears. I saved up for months to have it taken."

Rainbow looked down. Mike's father was a burly, broad shouldered dark-haired man in his early twenties with a brutally handsome face and the beginnings of a pot belly that was half a head shorter than Agatha. Agatha held a solemn blonde toddler with big blue eyes in her arms, the man, slightly off to the side frowned, looking away from them. Rainbow squinted, her eyes weren't playing tricks: Agatha had a black eye under the makeup. She glanced over at Mike's mother, at loss for words.

Agatha must have misunderstood her expression, "Welcome to small town living: Joe was the quarterback. (Mike got his shoulders - the only good part of that son of a bitch.) I was the cheerleader. Prom King and Queen, Homecoming King and Queen, blah blah blah – people expected us to marry – it was the fairy tale. We did. We divorced. End of fairy tale." She looked up, calling, "Mike, I found the photo album!"

"Oh God, not that thing." Without Rainbow noticing it, Mike had jogged up the flight of steps that scaled the drop off to the beach, pausing to pull his t-shirt back on. "Throw it away, nobody wants it!"

"I do."

"Mmmmph." Mike turned his back on both of them, adjusting his t-shirt, which was bunched up between his shoulder blades. Agatha grinned at Rainbow, "Watch. This." She whispered, giggling as she flipped past two or three pages.

"I didn't know Mike had a sister!" Rainbow exclaimed, "She's… gorgeous – why didn't she come today?"

"MA, cut it OUT!" Mike roared, turning around, ears darkly red once more.


	34. Tailhook 7

_When Mike was six, he found the album tucked away among the VCR tapes and had been fascinated by the pictures of his mother in gowns and crowns and not her usual t-shirt and jeans, hair tied back from her makeup free face, cleaning other people's houses, mopping floors, waitressing— so fascinated that Mike didn't notice when his father came up behind where he sat in the middle of the living room floor, their elderly air conditioner wheezing and straining in a nearby window until the man said, "Weren't for you, you sorry little sack of shit, she'd be Miss 'merica."_

 _Sweating, Dad had gestured around the shabby trailer, "We'd have it easy, she'd be a queen – only she got herself knocked up. Got me stuck in this dumbass town selling used cars on commission for my dad. Bitch should'a listened to me and aborted you – we'd be somebody by now!" before staggering off to the couch, snores drowning out "Dora the Explorer"._

 _Aborted._

 _What did "aborted" mean?_

 _As with many words Mike heard without understanding, he asked his mother it's meaning when she came home later that evening after cleaning the nearby high school. As he helped her unload groceries from the car while his father snored, Mike innocently dropped the word like the f-bomb he'd loudly, joyfully, deployed in Bible school a few days earlier, not knowing what it meant._

 _Exhaustion forgotten, she'd stood in the doorway on the splintery little porch in the damp August heat, lugging a box of Tide, face all funny and stiff, before dropping the big orange box so that it burst on the threshold in a cloud of white dust and storming over to where dad sprawled on the couch, beer can balanced on his gut, empties on the floor beside him, demanding to know what the hell had he told the kid, how could he say such hateful things? Mike was only a child, for God's sake!_

 _Mike fled, hiding under his bed, listening to the argument as it raged back and forth, expecting his dad to come roaring in while pulling off his belt, only dad was now outside, unsteady footsteps heading for the car, the door slamming, the engine starting, his mother coaxing him out from under the bed, holding him in her arms where she sat cross-legged on the floor of the stuffy little room, crying._

 _Still not knowing what the word meant, Mike cried along with her, knowing the argument had been his fault._

 _Only later when Mike was old enough to understand the concept of "dictionary" and how to use one did he find out what "abortion" meant._

 _His eight-year old self was devastated._


	35. Tailhook 8

"Mike's an only child."

"Oh my God, that's _Mike?"_

Leaning against the safety rail with his back to the Pacific with burning ears, Mike closed his eyes in the growing dark. Yeah, well, so he'd had long hair before the Navy, lotta people did. Had he known how much more convenient a buzz cut was, he would have done it a long time ago.

Just put the damned album away.

Just put it away, okay?

He'd come up to see if they were all right up there by themselves, only to find this, this, this…

(This little bit of the past he'd just as soon not remember.)

Like seeing his dad and his, what was it? Third? Fourth? Wife/girlfriend/whatever in that gas station parking lot.

He'd bought Lt. Dash lunch from the burrito joint next to the gas station, trying his best to try and get something she'd like before tearing out of the parking lot and back onto the highway even as the red convertible pulled up behind them at the pump.

He watched the two of them in the side mirror of his old truck, the blonde at least twenty years younger than his dad, a cheap knockoff of mom with dad a slowly dissolving wreck of a man in a loud sports coat lighting up one handed behind the wheel, free arm around the bimbo's shoulder. Just seeing him suddenly made the last nine months, the last seven years, meaningless.

How had the man found him and what the hell did he want? He'd never bothered with Mike's life before. Why now?

"Mike?"

 _"What!"_ he turned his back to the sinking sun, "Yeah, I had long hair back then. So?"

"No need to snarl." His mother gave him "the look", "I just need to know if you want to stay up the road at the Ventura Lodge with me and the Shys or if you were going to stay in the campground with your friends tonight because I don't think Rainbow is up to roughing it. Not with that ankle."

Rainbow spoke up, "I can take care of myself. The site we reserved is pretty level. I'll be all right as long as I don't find a gopher hole in the dark with my crutches on the way to the latrine at 2 a.m."


	36. Tailhook 9

"Looks like you got yourself a real beauty there, son." Mr. Shy whistled in admiration, "I know, I know. You should see the other guy." He handed Mike a bag of ice scrounged from one of the half empty beer coolers as Bollywood's family worked around them setting up a portable tandoori oven or ferrying things from a catering van to the tables that dotted the adjoining campsites.

"Damn, ow!" Head pounding, Mike winced as the ice came into contact with the large black eye he'd gotten the night before in a dust-up with Zephyr of all people.

Not that Zephyr had managed to hit him in their little unscheduled pissing match, but a semi-crocked Mike had walked into a tree in the dark on his way to the tent he shared with Bollywood, who was still passed out. Somebody had thrown a tarp over the snoring Zephyr where he lay on his side in a pool of his own vomit by the remains of last night's bonfire, leaving the rubber chicken Mike had whacked him over the head with laying beside him among the empty beer cans and wine bottles.

Mr. Shy, up with the birds, had walked over from the offsite lodge he'd reserved for his family months in advance, caught Mike on the way to the park shower house, where Mike spent an hour leaning half-asleep against the grubby shower stall wall under a cold stream of water taking inventory of his sins from the night before.

Too much to drink. Check.

Shot his mouth off. Check.

Almost but not quite got into a fight. Check.

Embarrassingly acquired black eye. Check

Pissed somebody off. Check.

Pissed multiple somebodies off. Check. Check.

Blearily he looked over at the tent he'd spent half the night passed out in, feet where his head should have been on the sleeping bag before a night terror drove him upright and bolting out of the side of the tent taking half of it with him.

Property damage. Check.

Hopefully kept his hands to himself… wince.

Nope.

Which might have something to do with the near-fight he'd had with Zephyr.

"I think I beat the shit out of your son."

"You saved me the trouble." Mr. Shy said wryly, handing him a can of V8 heavily doctored with Tabasco sauce, "Drink this, it's time for a little walk, you and me."

It had been a long time since Mike last let his guard down this far, and he was going to pay for it the rest of the day. "No - urp - thanks." He flopped down on the bench by the remains of last night's bonfire. "I need to lie down…" Mike's mouth, though dry, tasted like somebody had used his tongue to wipe their shitkicker boots on after walking across a barnyard inhabited by cows, no, pigs. Without thinking, he drained the can in one pull, the Tabasco blazing a trail all the way to his stomach. "…or throw up." Coughting, he dropped the empty can between his feet with a clatter, elbows on knees, head spinning.

"You can do that later." Mr. Shy, after reminding Mike that the left cross trainer went on the left foot and the right cross trainer went on the right foot but only AFTER he pulled on his socks and not Bollywood's, adding, "While you're at it, zip up your fly and turn your shirt around Mike. Things may have changed since when I was active duty, but there are still women present." The older man passed him another doctored V-8 before levering him and his improvised ice pack upright, aiming him towards the paved road that wound through the campground.

After a one sudden trip to the side of the road where it felt like he heaved up just about everything he'd eaten (or drank) for the last week or so into the ditch, Mike started to feel slightly better, though his eye felt like it had been run over by a car along with the rest of his face.

Mr. Shy continued his slow, steady jog as if Mike hadn't suddenly left him, letting Mike catch up as best he could. They continued about a half a mile before Mike ventured, remembering a portrait he'd seen in a classroom at Miramar, "You're Dragon, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Or, _was."_ Mr. Shy gave a deferential shrug, "And now I'm an old man with an embarrassing son I can't dislodge from my basement – probably not what you expected."

Mike finished the V-8, and waited for the Tabasco burn to subside before asking, "You're a legend. And you're one of… _them_."

"I was. I am. Rainbow Dash isn't the first, and she isn't the last to come here. I found myself in your world in 1962. I met my mirror twin just before he drowned in a fishing accident. Not knowing how to get home, I took his place."

Another quarter mile passed, Mr. Shy added. "And when I finally found a portal, ten years had passed. Rainbow and the others are very lucky… girls."

"But those officers knew you, one of them even asked you to play golf with him next week."

"Of course – I came back. Some I trained, others were fellow officers as my career progressed– I draw two pensions, you know." This seemed to amuse him, "One from the U.S. Navy where I'm Bob Shy, and one from the Wonderbolts where I'm Dragon Shy. Our Lady of the Sun allows me to come and go as needed, I trained many, many Wonderbolts once I came home – shuttling back and fourth with her permission – but that's not what I ordered you to walk with me about."

Oh God. Here it comes.

"That man at the diner last night was your father."


	37. Tailhook 10

Another quarter mile passed in mutual silence, their footfalls startling a deer into trotting across the road. Mike watched it's gangling grace disappear into the underbrush ahead of them before venturing, "Yeah."

 _After his mother and the Shy's excused themselves to the disappointed wails of Scootaloo who being sixteen had to go with them, the remainder decided to go up the road a bit for a late dinner, piling into their cars, including Cheese Sandwich's rented, oh dear God, genuine clown car, a bizarrely modified hot pink and green vintage VW Beetle._

 _Mike, bringing up the rear of the convoy to some retro mom and pop diner or other that somebody remembered eating at on the last road trip here and not getting sick as a result, knew all about the Bug. The slowly revolving fake wind-up key on the back end of the gaudy pregnant rollerskate had been so distracting that the red convertible which loudly roared past them on the narrow scenic highway when it was clearly a solid yellow line barely registered - that, and the constant stream of complaints from Zephyr in the back of Mike's truck because nobody wanted Zephyr in their vehicle._

 _Aside from the smell, Fluttershy's younger brother left stains on everything he touched and complained nonstop when he wasn't interrupting people to tell them how great he was at World of Warthogs, or whatever it was he did when he wasn't eating – worse, he wouldn't leave the women in the group alone, especially Rainbow Dash, who clearly wanted nothing to do with him._

 _After Rainbow scowled at Mike wordlessly from the passenger seat, vigorously shaking her head, "NO!" when Mike almost turned into a truck stop so the pest in the back could get something to plug the whine overflowing from his mouth. Exasperated, Mike finally tossed the half-eaten bag of pretzels he'd found in the glove compartment through the sliding panel in the rear window of the truck cab before slamming it shut and locking it, cutting off Fluttershy's younger brother's non-stop demands to pull in at every convenience store they passed because Zephyr was "Hungry!" or "I can't let my blood sugar get low or I'll pass out!"_

 _Ready to pull over and dump Zephyr on the side of the highway for some random stranger to claim, preferably a serial killer with a reinforced suspension, Mike finally pulled the elderly little truck into the parking lot well after everybody else, back bumper bottoming out where the pavement turned to gravel, with Zephyr carping non-stop through the glass that the pretzels were stale, their empty bag and several super-size Snicker's wrappers littering the bed as he ponderously heaved himself off the lowered tailgate one thick leg at a time. Complaining about the pain in his knees, Fluttershy's younger brother petulantly shoved past Bollywood and Snake in his haste to get inside the café where he took up most of a corner booth, stridently trying to get Rainbow Dash to join him until a waitress distracted him with a menu and a big tumbler of Coke._

 _Ignoring him, Rainbow crutched to one of the stools fronting the counter, which ran the length of the vintage diner made from of an old railroad car, the rest of the party joining her. Busy looking over their own menus, nobody really noticed at first when one, and then another, and then another waitress went past them with trays of bread, appetizers, and a pitcher of Coke until L'Marion, Rainbow Dash's roommate, leaning back in her stool, reached around Fluttershy who was studying the menu up on the wall over the service window, and tapped Rainbow Dash on the shoulder, "Gurrrrrrrrllllll, you'll never guess, but there's a p.i.g. PIG in here!" Dark eyes sparkling with malicious humor, she pointed at the corner booth._

 _"What? Where?" Rainbow Dash looked around for intruding livestock and then groaned when L'Marion added, "Not a real pig, Pony Girl. That Zeke guy, your cousin – he's been eating all day already!"_

 _"Zephyr, and he's NOT my cousin, Peaches." Rainbow hissed, automatically correcting her former classmate as she swiveled her stool around, exclaiming, "Oh my God, he's really done it this time!"_

 _Mike looked up from his own menu at the corner as Fluttershy softly wailed, "Oh no, not again!"_

 _"Shush, baby, he'll hear you!" Shaking her head L'Marion added, "He's got enough there for six people with another plate comin'. If he keeps eatin' like that, he'll be dead as my uncle Nelson before he's thirty!"_

 _Fluttershy was now on the verge of tears as Zephyr slowly, sensuously licked the last of some sort of white dip off of his fingers, eyes trying to catch Rainbow's._

 _The formerly noisy diner was now dead silent except for the banging and clattering of pots and pans in the kitchen as the rest of the party swiveled to face Zephyr, who, with elbows on table, stuffed handful after handful of boneless Buffalo wings and then bacon cheese fries directly from the platter into his mouth, chewing open mouthed so that his two inch ear gauges bobbed up and down in time to his jaws with a look of blissful concentration on his round face, strings of cheese festooning his thin, scraggly beard. "What? I'm a big guy – I need to eat to keep up my strength – not like you anorexic blank flanks!" He exclaimed defensively._

 _"Blank flank? What the hell's a blank flank?" L'Marion muttered as she flagged down a waitress for more water, "Should we take him out into the parking lot and kick his ass for sayin' that or what? …oh baby, don't cry. It's not your fault your brother never met a meal he didn't like!" she said loudly, wrapping her arm around Fluttershy's hunched and shaking shoulders._

 _"Why does he do this? He's killing himself!" Fluttershy pulled away, jumped down from the tall stool, and ran for the ladies room with L'Marion and Pinkie Pie close behind with Rainbow Dash acting as rear escort, face set as she crutched along._

 _Oblivious to the drama he was causing, Zephyr pulled a platter of stuffed potato skins meant for three people towards him and shoved them into his mouth one at a time after dumping most of a bottle of Ranch over them._

 _"Should we, like, do something about this?" Cyclone muttered in the uncomfortable silence, "I mean… Pony Girl's friend is really upset…" he gestured awkwardly at Zephyr and then in the general direction of the ladies room door. Loud sobs were now drifting out of the No Fly Zone._

 _Mike abruptly turned his back on Zephyr, "He's not our problem." before calling one of the counter girls over and asking, "What's tonight's special?"_

 _Following Mike's example, the rest of the group started ordering. The noise slowly resumed as Mike requested the biggest salad on the menu for Rainbow Dash, uncomfortably aware of Zephyr aggressively gobbling a freshly delivered platter of sliders, mini hamburgers, behind him. Pony Girl had no objections to anyone else eating meat and had no problem with eggs or dairy, but he couldn't help but notice that she seemed to find meat hard to digest. A quick glance at Cheese Sandwich seemed to hold true for the amiable goof as well. He'd ordered, no surprise, a grilled cheese sandwich, one for himself and one for Pinkie Pie._

 _About to ask Cheese about this, Mike changed his mind when the women of the group trooped out of the restroom and straight out the front door before coming back in minus L'Marion and Fluttershy. "Peaches, I mean, L'Marion, is driving Fluttershy to the lodge. Her stomach hurts and she doesn't want to ruin everyone's good time." Rainbow Dash murmured in his ear as she awkwardly sat down after placing her crutches in the empty booth behind her, "Whew, my ankle feels like it's on fire!" Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip despite the air conditioning._

 _"What the hell is wrong with him?" Mike muttered out of the side, jerking his chin at Zephyr who had finished the last of the sliders and was starting on a small salad drenched in Ranch. "It's like watching one of those giant round balers at work!"_

 _"He wasn't always like this, we'll discuss it later— oh dinner's here. Thanks for ordering for me!"_

 _Between his own meal and somebody finding a vintage jukebox by the coat rack, Mike found it easy to ignore the expanding issue in the corner booth._

 _That is, until the bill arrived._


	38. Tailhook 11

_Mike had stared down at the bill the waitress put on the counter in front of him in disbelief, "$500.02? What the hell?" but the tired looking girl had already moved on, handing out bills down the counter before he could stop her._

 _He'd ordered the special, a slice of prime rib, rare, with seasoned fries and a salad on the side; roughly... $15. Then he'd ordered Rainbow Dash that salad, which was another 15... drinks… Mike's lips moved as he mentally calculated; with tax it should have been a little over $35… plus a 40% mandatory tip… since when?_

 _"Mike, what's wrong?" Rainbow Dash, who had been picking at her salad, drink untouched, pulled the ticket towards her, "Oh my—," her eyes widened, "California's expensive, but this can't be right!"_

 _Mike leafed through the little stack of paper, pulling out the pale green ticket. Sure enough, special, salad, drinks, $35 plus change. "Miss? I think there's been a mistake!" He waved the ticket. The girl trotted down from the end of the counter where she'd been refilling Bollywoods's water glass._

 _She took it from him, scanned it, and shook her head, "Nope, this is right."_

 _"Yeah, but all I ordered was the special and a salad for Lt. Dash here. Without a tip, it should be…"_

 _The waitress took the ticket back, peeled a SECOND, ticket from the back of the first and handed it to Mike. "The man in the booth over there said you'd pay." She pointed over at Zephyr, who sat among the wreckage of his latest meal smiling like a malicious Buddha minus the clock in his belly._

 _Mike shook his head, gesturing at himself and Dash, "No. No. I'll pay for our meals, but I'm not paying for that!" He gestured at the corner of the room._

 _After three tries and knocking the table askew so that a plate fell off and shattered on the black and white checked linoleum, Zephyr heaved himself up out of the corner booth using the sides, back and table to get to his feet "You paid for hers!" He gestured at Rainbow Dash in the staring silence, "I'm your guest, blank flank. You owe me a meal!"_

 _"Pay for it yourself." Mike stated flatly._

 _"This isn't fair - you SAID you'd pay." Zephyr shoved his way towards Mike, belly jouncing with each step, "I don't have any money – you said you'd pay, blank flank!"_

 _"Like hell I will."_ Mike stood up.

 _Moving with surprising speed in the narrow space between counter and booth, Zephyr was suddenly in Mike's face, poking him in the chest with one sausage finger, he was almost as tall as Mike, "You paid for Rainbow Dash's meal, blank flank. Pay for mine – I deserve it!"_

 _Mike pushed Zephyr's sticky hand away from him._

 _The waitress fled into the back._

On a road that wandered among trees that were already ancient before either man was born, Mike simply said, "Your son ate half the menu. He expected me to pay for it."

Mr. Shy briefly closed his eyes while taking a long, deep breath without breaking his steady pace, "You're not the first one he's done this to."

"I told him no."

"Not many have."

 _The grill cook came out the kitchen gripping half a pool cue saying, "If you don't take it outside into the parking lot, I'm calling the Highway Patrol."_

 _"You won't have to if blank flank here does what he said he would." Zephyr sneered._

 _Since when had Mike promised that? He didn't even like the guy enough to offer him a ride in the back of his truck. Zephyr had pulled himself into the bed completely uninvited as they were all driving out of the beach parking lot!_

 _"Zephyr, stop it!" Rainbow Dash stood, winced, and then leaned against the counter._

 _Zephyr turned to her a petulant look on his face, "But Dashie," He tried to touch her hair, but Rainbow swatted his hand away, "Blank flank here paid for yours, why not miiiiiiiine?"_

 _Rainbow grimaced at the blast of onions and Ranch dressing, "It's LIEUTENANT Dash to you. Mike paid for my meal tonight because I paid for the gas to come here– now we're even."_

 _"It's not faaaaaair, I left my wallet at the lodge. He HAS to pay!"_

 _"That's right, keep it up li'l man!" Peaches, who had escaped into the Navy from Detroit came up behind Zephyr, "An' alla us gonna have a little talk outside 'bout this and won't nobody seen a thing." she purred, the others tensely crowding in behind her._

 _Zephyr backed up, or would have if his bulk had allowed him in the narrow space._

 _"Jolene, call the Patrol!" The grill cook backed away, pool cue forgotten._

 _"Miiiiiiiike, son!" Somebody clapped a big hand on Mike's shoulder._

They had reached a turnaround overlooking the early morning Pacific. Mr. Shy handed Mike an un-doctored V-8 from the small soft-sided cooler slung over one shoulder, keeping the last one for himself. He thoughtfully popped the top saying, "Go on."

Mike emptied his own can in one steady pull and set the empty container on the railing. He glanced out over the ocean and then back at Zephyr's father "Yeah, that's my dad, all right."

 _Oh God, could this get any worse?_

 _Except for spotting him in a gas station parking lot that morning, Mike hadn't seen or cared to see the man for nearly fifteen year. Now here he was, larger than life, complete with wife or girlfriend or whatever simpering on his arm. "I would have come to your graduation this morning, but the asshole guards at the front gate wouldn't let me in – something about needing a pass – why the hell do I need a pass? My taxes pay those guys salaries, and ME the biggest Kia dealer in the state of Missouri AND a personal friend of the Governor– I've been lookin' for you all day until I saw that ugly old truck of yours in the parking lot of this dump!" He leaned, giving Mike a bear hug, quickly releasing him so that he staggered before the beefy man with a hairline like the coastline of Florida grabbed his upper arm, swinging Mike forward as if displaying a trophy._

 _"Mike, everybody!" Mike's father tousled his hair, or would have had it not been so closely cropped before putting his arm around Mike's shoulders in a blast of expensive cologne, "My son the all-American hero – I made him everything he is today!"_

 _Zephyr backed away, suddenly sweating as Mike's dad started passing out handshakes skipping Peaches and Bollywood before pausing at Rainbow Dash, looking her up and down as he slowly took her hand in one massive hairy knuckled paw, "Well, well... Mike, this your girlfriend? What a hottie – baby, you're lucky to have him!"_

 _Rainbow pulled her hand away, wiping it on the side of her shorts, "He's not my boyfriend, he's my—"_

 _Mike's dad interrupted while handing her a business card, "Ever get tired California, come to St. Louis and gimme a call! I own the biggest Kia dealership in the state – I need a new PRIVATE (heh-heh, know what I mean?) secretary, now that Monique here and I are legal and last year's model's out the door!" He added as an aisde, "Bleach your hair darlin' and get it styled, I run a class outfit. Brunette don't cut it when I'm shakin' hands with the House of Representatives in D.C.!"_

 _Ears all but smoking, Mike escaped his dad's half-embrace, trying to get through the milling crowd to the furious Rainbow Dash where she'd sat down in a booth, business card ripped in half on the table beside her as she rubbed her swollen taped ankle, a look of disgust on her face. Also in the crush he noticed that Mr. Shy had come in, and with one finger looped through one of Zephyr's ear gauges, was leading the protesting, blubbering man out of the restaurant by this convenient handle._

 _Mike's dad grabbed him by the collar, pulling him back, "Now, Mike, SON, what's this about a bill?" The man dug around in one of his jacket pockets, pulling out a stack of bills held together with a large gold money clip. He pulled out two and tossed them on the counter, "This should cover it – anything for my son (You ever get tired of bein' a hero, Mike, I got a sales job waiting for you at the dealership in St. Louis!)"_

 _The waitress running the register tried to hand him back the change, "No, no, sweetness! Keep the change, keep the change!" He folded her fingers over the considerable pile of small bills and change, leering, "Plenty more where that came from, honey!"_

 _By then, Mike had already pulled out of the parking lot in search of a convenience store, passing Mr. Shy's car on the Coastal Highway as he did so._

"Your father," Mr. Shy observed drily, "Seems a generous man."

 _Pulled off on a little side road half an hour later, Mike sat In his little truck, the remains of the first six pack rolling around on the floor of the cab as he steadily demolished the second one, followed by a third, trying to drown the remembered beatings, the yelling, the fights, of his mother's black eyes, of his father slapping him in the face in front of everybody at his second wedding when Mike was ten, yelling, "That greedy whore sent you here to guilt me into giving her child support, didn't she, you useless little sack of shit! Well, this is all the bitch'll ever get from me!" He'd knocked Mike sprawling when all Mike had wanted was to say hello. Mike's uncle had picked the strangely silent boy with his gushing nose up off the floor and led him outside murmuring, "I'm sorry, kid. I never should have brought you – I never should have brought you!" as he drove his old truck out of the parking lot._

 _Eventually Mike started the reluctant engine of his own old truck, backed out, and made his unsteady way back to the park campground. The gate lay in pieces on either side of the road and nobody was in the little booth, so he drove on through._

 _Had it not been for the car laying on it's side in the ditch on the way to the campground distracting the ranger patrolling the park, Mike probably wouldn't have made his unsteady way as far as he did_


	39. Tailhook 12

Mr. Shy looked down the road, "Sounds like the rest of your flight, the ones who can stand without falling down, have decided to take a morning run."

Mike followed his gaze, "That was your car in the ditch, wasn't it?"

"'Fraid so. Zephyr must have decided he'd not had enough fun and slipped out some time after midnight." Fluttershy's father gave a wry smile, "Too bad my son forgot he doesn't know how to drive."

 _Though disgusted, Rainbow Dash was still concerned for Mike as she rode back back to the campground from the diner in an unusually quiet Peaches's Corvette. Remembering the stricken look on Bollywood's face, she cautiously ventured, "I don't think Mike's like his… father."_

 _Peaches snorted, turning up the sound system so that the entire interior of the car felt like the insides of a drum, the full moon over the pacific pacing them. Rainbow leaned her head against the cool glass, staring out into the silver darkness, ears aching._

 _The music stopped with a click. "It always catches you off guard." The black woman said quietly, face outlined by the dashboard lights._

 _"Huh?" Rainbow Dash shook her bangs out of her eyes. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"_

 _"I said: you dance the dance, you sing the song, you take the tests, you walk the walk, you come out on top, everybody's shoutin' "Hallelu-JAH!" and "Sing it sis-TUH!" Peaches, no, L'Marion, met her glance, eyes darkly wet. "And then some cracker asshole reminds you that you're only in the choir 'cause they HAD to let you in – and it all turns to shit in your hands."_

 _"… yeah."_

 _"Bollywood, Ravi, he's smart, a genius maybe, and then that… that…"_

 _"Shithead?"_

 _"Close enough – and what he said to you, girlfrien'?" L'Marion slammed one dark hand on the steering wheel, making the car swerve, "He thought you were some… some… skanky… HO!"_

 _Not sure exactly what a "ho" was, but having her suspicions, Rainbow said, "I got that back home."_

 _"What, Poland?"_

 _Ignoring L'Marion's mistake, Rainbow Dash simply said, "I was the best fli… I mean, track runner in High School, only I wasn't "feminine" enough." She laughed softly, "That blob in the corner used to be the best looking stallion in the upper grades – all the fillies wanted to be his…_

 _"Stallion? Fillies?"_

 _"Our mascot was a mustang." Rainbow Dash corrected, smoothly adding, "He asked me to be his date for the Spring Formal. It felt like an honor until I figured out that the only reason he did was that I was so good at… running– otherwise, I wasn't girly enough, I know this because he said I was a "fixer upper"."_

 _"And?"_

 _"I told him to fuck off — his sister Fluttershy and I have been best friends ever since!"_

 _The two women burst out laughing, high fiving._

 _Finally L'Marion wiped her eyes on the back of one hand, catching her breath before saying, "Has Mike ever… you know… said anything? About? You know?"_

 _Both women sat in silence pondering the elephant in the room, "I've known Schmidt since Basic– nothing that I noticed… you?" Rainbow, on the other hand, had been a colossal bitch, nearly getting the both of them kicked out of flight school until she realized he wasn't the enemy, just some guy with his own goals, none of which included keeping her down._

 _L'Marion signaled her turn into the park, "Nope – Cheapskate's got about as much personality as an tipped over traffic cone, but he's always been 5x5 by me!"_

 _"Well, then, here's a big ol' "Fuck off, you pervy old man!" to his dad and keep on flying!"_

 _Watching the rising sparks while mulling over the previous conversation she'd had while riding with L'Marion, Rainbow Dash sat on a picnic bench facing the bonfire somebody had already lit, foot propped up on a bag of ice atop somebody's cooler nursing a locally produced hard cider as the Tylenol kicked in. Ravi had regained his usual good nature and was tuning a sitar, something she'd never seen before and was looking forward to hearing once the party got started when Mike landed heavily beside her so that she'd had to quickly scoot over to avoid being mashed._

 _Judging by the way he was sweating in the cool night air, Mike was half-plastered already. He then gave her an uncharacteristic smile which lit up his entire face as he leaned back, elbows behind him on the concrete table after grabbing a beer from a passing cooler, downing the entire can in one go before dropping it to the ground as Ravi and then someone else with a guitar started playing two different songs at the same time as somebody's stereo system started pumping out something by Kid Rock._

 _She scooted over even further as her wingmate slowly and steadily tipped over sideways so that he was now leaning heavily against her shoulder until his head ended up on her lap like a bowling ball that …snored?_

 _Hollow boned and lighter than she looked, the now trapped Rainbow Dash tried to wiggle out from under him, uncomfortable with the entire situation even if it was off Base and off duty. "Help!" she gasped reaching out to L'Marion as she passed, "I-I-I…"_

 _"Not my problem, baby girl!" L'Marion guffawed, shaking her head, "5x5 here must have gone off somewhere and started the party early before makin' a three- point in yo' lap!"_

 _"My butt's falling asleep, help me move him!" Rainbow pleaded._

 _"…and oh my Gawd, that SNORE – I pity his roommate!" L'Marion walked towards the fire, hollering, "Yo, Dusty, toss me a beer!"_

 _Rainbow Dash made one last attempt to shift the raucously snoring Mike, shoving him hard. Mike shifted around a bit, put an arm around her waist, pummeled her a bit like a pillow, and then settled down, snore deepening into the range of an idling F-14 Tomcat. Giving up, Rainbow leaned back against the table, enjoying watching everyone else have a good time._

 _Pinkie Pie giggled, elbowing Cheese Sandwich, who had rescued his accordion from the back of the Beetle, and was attempting to jam with Ravi. He turned, caught Rainbow's eye and gave her a thumb's up, only to duck laughing when she tossed an empty beer can at his head. Figuring that Mike would eventually wake up and wander off, Rainbow hoped it would be soon so she could slip down to the showerhouse and pee._

 _Idly she ran a finger down his nose, feeling a deviation in its straightness she'd never noticed before—an old break? Mike started at her touch in his sleep and then relaxed, face softening so that the child she'd seen in the album earlier in the evening inadvertently revealed itself._

Both men watched the approaching runners through the trees, Scootaloo valiantly bringing up the rear, obviously having refused to let anybody push her. "She must have come in earlier this morning with Mr. Shy," Mike mused inwardly.

"Miss Scootaloo," Mr. Shy, as if having read his mind, "Is enchanted by your mother's car and its modifications." He chuckled as if glad for the distraction. "It was all she could talk about last night at the lodge – she wants one for herself, purple, should I ever allow her to come back with Mrs. Shy and myself."

Mike looked at him as he added, serious once more, "Before they get here, I need to know what happened."

"It happened so fast, I'm not sure what happened myself."


	40. Tailhook 13

_Mike suddenly found himself on the ground as Shocktop said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."_

 _"Yeah," Somewhere behind Mike, Dusty laughed, "She'll. Kick. Your. Ass."_

 _Mike scrambled to his feet to raucous beer-soaked laughter – Zephyr, manbun now a mass of greasy locks was yanking Rainbow Dash to her feet, saying, "Dashie, you're going home with me, NOW!"_

"What's a blank flank?" Mike asked.

Mr. Shy looked pensive before saying, "Where we're from, that's a child who doesn't know who or what they are yet." He cleared his throat, "But when applied to an adult who has earned their mark, it's a deadly insult, not to be tossed around lightly – it means the target has forgotten who or what he or she is. In other words, a loser."

 _In spite of him outweighing her by several hundred pounds, a scowling Rainbow easily broke Zephyr's grip, maneuvering him into a practiced headlock without putting any extra weight on her sprained ankle, "Never, ever, touch me again! You got that?" She released him with a shove, aiming him away from her so that he stumbled backwards over a pile of firewood to the sound of jeering laughter, the rest of the flight and their guests edging closer, enjoying the free show._

 _"Dashie," Teetering, Zephyr squealed, "What do you see in these wingless blank flanks, anyway?" Arms flailing and belly jiggling as gravity finally won, he caught Rainbow's arm on the way down, roughly jerking her sideways so that she put her full weight on her injured ankle with a cry to avoid going down with him._

 _"Don't EVER come near me again!" Rainbow said quietly as she picked up an empty wine bottle by the neck from the picnic table, gripping it like a club adding, "If you do, you'll need stitches!"_

 _Grunting and flailing, Zephyr heaved himself upright and came at her again, face beaded with sweat. Rainbow calmly raised the bottle._

 _"Dash, that's ENOUGH!" Mike caught her by the wrist and tried to pry the glass container out of her fingers, "He's not worth it." The two of them wrestled over the glass container until he was able to hurl it into the darkness where it shattered against a tree. Rainbow backed off, hair in her eyes, breathing hard. "He's not worth it, Dash— you got that?" Mike stepped towards Rainbow, intending to lead her away somewhere until she could calm down, when, with fists flailing, Zephyr piled into him from behind screaming, "I'm the injured party here, and that's MY mare, you dirty blank flank!" as the two men went down in a yelling, writhing heap._

 _Zephyr stank of sweat and stale fast food as Mike slithered out from under him and staggered to his feet. Somebody came up behind Mike and slipped something cold and rough into his hand, muttering, "This came in handy the other day when Zephyr and I had ourselves a wee private discussion about Pinkie Pie and him keeping himself to himself." Cheese Sandwich nonchalantly stepped away as nose bleeding, Zephyr ponderously hauled himself upright, Pokemon shirt torn and missing a gauge so that the lobe of his right ear flopped limply in time to his steps as he advanced on Mike. "My dad's a top Wonderbolt, you can't do this to me!"_

 _"What the hell's a Wonderbolt?" Mike said, genuinely puzzled, "Whatever it is, you're not!"_

 _"I'm the nice guy, the good guy here, but now you've angered me." Zephyr struck a clumsy martial art-ish pose, slowly waving his hands around in front of him as he unsuccessfully attempted to balance on one flip-flopped foot, "I studied with the Shaolin monks for ten years and am a master— prepare to feel my righteous wrath upon your unworthy head!" With a blubbering yelp Zephyr clumsily lunged forward making some sort of kicking movement with his feet so that a flip flop sailed lazily over Mike's head._

 _"Oh for crissake!" Ducking, Mike blearily swung whatever it was Cheese Sandwich had given him at the slowly charging Zephyr's head, where it solidly connected with his skull with a rubbery "thump"._

 _Gasping, Zephyr tottered, martial art yell silenced by his vomiting down the front of his shirt before face-planting in his own spew._

 _"Somebody roll that useless sack of shit over before he chokes on his own vomit, will you?" Mike said, dropping the loaded rubber chicken beside Zephyr only to stride face first into a tree that wasn't supposed to be there before passing out in the tent he was sharing with Bollywood._

"He started it, sir."

"I just wanted to be sure. My son," Mr. Shy grimaced as he watched the approaching runners, "Has a way of embroidering the truth in his favor. It used to be amusing when he was small, but that's not why I dragged you out here this morning."


	41. Tailhook 14

Zephyr's father eased something up over his head from around his neck and handed it to Mike, "Our Ladies of the Sun and the Moon have ordered me to give you this."

Mike looked down at the little wine-dark velvet pouch he now held.

"Open it." Mr. Shy said quietly, and Mike did, pulling out a twist of grass braided into an intricate knot.

"What is it?" he asked, forgetting the dull throbbing ache that was his face as the scent of honeysuckle and new mown hay mingled with the watery salt of the Pacific wafted around him.

"When things get bad, really bad, untie it into the wind." Mr. Shy gripped Mike's shoulder, "Equestria does not turn its back on its own, even in exile." It was then that Mike realized that the man was almost as tall as he was.

Unaccountably disturbed, Mike slid the knot back into the pouch and pulled the strings tight before hesitantly slipping it over his neck so that it rested beside his dog tags. "We will discuss this later." Mr. Shy released him, turning to face the approaching runners, "Now, would you care to join this rickety old stallion in an unscheduled Honor Run? I think the rest of your flight has finally figured out who I am, though that was long ago and very, _very_ far away." He chuckled, stepping forward like a king, shaking hands and greeting everyone by name until taking the lead with Mike's flight acting as an honor guard, the group ran steadily back to the campsite, a radiant Scootaloo coasting among them as she took advantage of the gentle downward incline.


	42. Tailhook 15

_The smell of Indian home cooking for dinner filled the campsite as Mike, still smarting over the stupid drunken brawl with Zephyr, sprawled out in the bed of his truck, hiding behind a week-old newspaper he'd found under the driver's seat, not quite, but almost, reading the want ads._

 _The vehicle jounced as somebody sat on the lowered tailgate._

 _Rainbow Dash pulled the paper down and sort of smiled at him._

 _Mike twitched it so that it flipped back up and continued scanning the ads. There was somebody trying to unload a cheap electric guitar with a bad amp (Mike knew the amp was bad because the ad freely admitted to it being bad), and somebody else had lost a wallet (purple ostrich skin, vegan tanned)._

 _Mike eventually lowered the paper, Dash was_ _obviously_ _in no mood to take a hint._

 _"Hey." She said around a mouthful of doughnut, foot still swollen and crutches propped against the tailgate._

 _Ears burning, Mike responded. "Hey."_

 _"Oh my God, look at your face… On second thought, don't." She sipped from the styrofoam cup of coffee she'd brought with her. "What did you do last night after the dust-up with Zephyr, have a fight with a tree?"_

 _"Yeah." He grumbled, back behind the paper. Somebody had lost a cell phone while clubbing, cash reward if returned._

 _Go away._

 _"Enny-who," she said, releasing a crumpled envelope so that it slid down the incline of Mike's newspaper and onto his lap. "You left this at the restaurant by your plate last night. It looks important."_

 _Mike reluctantly glanced at the contents: a $100 dollar bill and a hastily scrawled note on the back of a lumber receipt, "Sry can't come to graduation. Roof job counting on to pay for ride to California fell through. Uze to buy summethin' on me. ProudofyouUncle Ralph." Damn. (If he'd known, Mike would have sent his uncle enough money for the trip West and back.)_

 _Rainbow Dash continued "My friends, the ones who couldn't make it to the ceremony, brought fresh cider donuts with them this morning. Applejack was up half the night making them. I nearly lost a hand trying to grab a couple during the mad scramble when she put the trays down on the picnic table along with coffee after you guys got back from that run with Mr. Shy."_

 _Go away._ _Just... go away…_

 _"I saved two… if you want 'em."_

 _...well, maybe just one._

 _"Want coffee? I have two here."_

 _Oh, all right._

 _Mike accepted her offering. "Thanks. How's your ankle?"_

 _Rainbow shrugged, "Still hurts. So, don't expect me to participate in any Honor Runs today." He accepted the second doughnut, watching Bollywood enthuse to, who was it? Twilight Sparkle? over by one of his brightly clad elderly female relatives who was frying spices in an iron skillet over a gas burner. Pretty girl, weird name. The doughnuts were good. Hungrier than he thought he was, Mike finished it in two bites, followed by more coffee, somewhat cold, and then the second one._

 _"I wanted to thank you." Dash scooched over, easing herself_ _down_ _beside him so that her back rested against the cab, legs almost as long as his, the intricate tattoos swirling from her hips to her knees barely showing beneath the edges of her long cargo shorts as they watched Mr. Shy haul a groggily whining Zephyr up off of the ground and into his badly dented car, while flatly stating. "You're lucky my insurance covered the damage you did to the front gate. You already owe your mother and I several thousand from when you let the styling salon we helped finance go bankrupt."_

 _"For what?" Mike looked over at Rainbow, face throbbing. The Tylenols he'd popped dry half an hour ago hadn't really kicked in yet and ice hadn't helped. He scratched at his chin, nails rasping against the stubble; not that he felt like shaving._

 _"For stopping me from giving Zephyr what he deserved."_

 _"You're…welcome." In no mood to discuss Zephyr, Mike returned to the want ads. Somebody wanted to buy a trailer. Somebody wanted to get swap a goat for a storage shed, only serious shed owners need contact... Somebody found a brand new pair of Diesel jeans size 29 in the middle of an intersection – to claim, call 867-5309…_

 _Scootaloo wheeled past, one of Bollywood's youngest, smallest relatives on her lap urging her to go faster, FASTER!_

 _Watching them, Rainbow Dash added, "I also wanted to thank you for being so kind to Scoots yesterday. Life's not easy when wings are everything and yours don't work so hot."_

 _"Mmmmph." Go away, I want to sleep. But I can't. Something's wrong… Mike brushed at the end of his nose, but the throbbing, the itching, only worsened._

 _In fact, more than sleep, what Mike really wanted to do, was sneeze._

 _As Rainbow finished her own doughnut, Mike grimaced, a sneeze erupting from him in a thick splatter of blood…_

 _… he was ten…his father slapped him across the face… hard… in front of everybody…_

 _Rainbow gaped at Mike before exclaiming, "Holy crap!" as he sat stupidly staring down at the brilliant red spattered across the page, nose gushing down the front of his shirt…_

 _…falling sideways, landing on the floor of a VFW hall decorated for a wedding, too startled to cry… big boys don't cry… "You worthless little sack of shit!" …big boys don't cry…_

 _"Fluttershy, I know you're a veterinarian, but Mike just started bleeding all over the place - help!" she called from a half crouch, grabbing a dirty t-shirt leftover from the beach that he'd tossed back there because he didn't want sand in the cab, "Tip your head back against my shoulder, that's it, ease back, ease back, hold still – I've never seen a nosebleed this bad – Applejack, bring a towel and some ice will you – it won't stop bleeding!"_

 _…big boys don't cry…_

 _Trying to staunch the flow, Rainbow clamped down on Mike's nose so hard that the edges of his broken septum grated together… he leaned gasping against her where the two of them sat in the back of his truck, the grind of bone, of tearing cartilage, echoing in his head_

 _…big boys don't cry…_

 _"…worthless little sack of shit!"_

 _…the same way it had out in the parking lot when Uncle Ralph tried to stop the bleeding… the pain jolting ten year old Mike back to reality so that he started crying like he'd never stop...big boys don't cry…_

 _Only it wasn't Applejack with a towel and ice but Mike's dad who slowly walked towards where he sat in the bed of his truck, hand drawing back before coming down across his face so hard, that ears ringing Mike blacked out...big boys don't cry…_

…Mike sat up gasping in his bunk somewhere in the belly of the super carrier _Abraham Lincoln._

It was the third time this week he'd had the same nightmare.

In the darkness Mike raised a large shaking hand to his face; the swelling was almost gone, the splints, the packing… the dull ache… _his father's hand connecting, sending him sprawling…_

After a while, Mike rolled over and went back to sleep, bunk soaked with sweat.


	43. Tailhook 16

Rainbow Dash started noticing something was up with Mike not long after the group camping trip; something bubbling just beneath his usually calm surface.

The first time was when he'd come into her room in the V.O.Q. at Miramar while she was showering without her knowing. No problem there: she was expecting him, just not that early. He'd asked her to drive with him to L.A. so that he could have his nose re-broken under anesthesia by a specialist, no thanks to his fight with a small coastal redwood during the group camp out at Big Sur.

Thankfully wearing her bathrobe when she left the bathroom while drying her hair, Rainbow found him face-palming at the little desk that came with the room, her papers spread out before him.

"That's _private!_ " she'd said, annoyed. True, they worked together, practically in each other's back pockets, but there were limits!

"How long have you gone without… without…" He'd gestured down at the uncashed checks and the envelopes from the IRS that she stored in a plastic shoebox, "Don't you know you have to... to… deal with this sort of stuff as soon as it arrives in the mail?"

"I've been a little busy lately." Embarrassed, Rainbow dropped the towel on the floor before reaching over and taking one of the envelopes out of his hand and checking the postmark, 201-. "Okay. Well, I've been a LOT busy."

Mike sat staring open-mouthed up at her over the cast on his nose, dark circles under his eyes going darker. "You mean you… oh my God."

Rainbow stared, entranced by this marvel. Usually Mike's ears changed color, but this? _This_ was wonderful! "You just turned maroon. How'd you do that?"

Mike stood up and glared down at her but not by much as she was six foot one in bare feet, "Dammit, Dash, don't change the subject! This is serious, _really_ serious!" He would have been intimidating but for the bandages across the bridge of his nose.

"What, because I don't know who IRS is?" Stifling a giggle, Rainbow picked up the issue P.T. shorts and Navy t-shirt she planned to wear that day and pushed past him in the cramped space of her room, intending to dress in the john. There were some mysteries she intended to preserve.

Mouth working silently, Mike stared at her until she firmly closed the door in his face, locking it behind her, "You really don't know… don't you have taxes in Pony-la-la-Rainbow-Land or whatever it's called?" came his voice through the flimsy door. "I mean, you pilot a multi-million dollar government-owned aircraft but don't know about taxes? Really?"

"Equestria, and yes. We call them George." Rainbow rolled her eyes while pulling on the shorts. What was Mike so upset about? She'd deal with it later!

"This is bad. This is _really_ bad!" Mike flopped back down in the chair, rolling it so that he corralled her in the bathroom when she opened the door again, almost ready to ride with him to L.A. "And checks. How could you not understand checks – what do you do for money?"

"When I need money, I take one to the nearest Check and Go and cash it. Everybody does it!" she gestured at him with the, "Anyway the Navy gives me stuff, like this room – so I only use it to buy toothpaste, uniforms, and add to the Officer's Mess fund whenever they tell me I owe – that, and my Sprint bill – they get a cashier's check. What's the problem?"

"Problem? Problem?" Mike leaned back, running one hand over his now-sweating face and buzzcut, avoiding his splinted nose, free hand waving envelopes at her. "Dash, those places rip you off every damn time… and this has been going on for…" he pulled a sealed envelope from the bottom of the stack and read the postmark, "Holy shit! That long?" He sat bolt upright, flushing towards heliotrope with indigo perhaps not far behind.

"Okay, so I lost track." She rolled Mike two feet to the left and raked her cross trainers and socks with one foot where they'd been kicked under the desk behind him, "Now, get out of the way. I need to get my shoes on or we'll be late for your appointment."

"And I thought all I was going to have to deal with today was going under so that some guy could shove a scalpel up my nose and scrape the scar tissue out of it and then maybe re-break it…" he moaned, elbow on desk, hand covering his eyes. "Dash, I'm serious here. YOU NEED TO PAY YOUR CELL PHONE BILL BY FRIDAY – not only that, your temporary motorcycle license EXPIRED last month, and your driver's license expires next TUESDAY."

"Oh."

Rainbow had to admit that the drive to L.A. from Miramar had improved once Mike calmed down, losing the coloration she found so intriguing only to regain it when he started swearing at traffic, something she'd never seen him do before. Adding to his new and startling ability to change color, Mike come out of the recovery room all woozy and gray, so she'd had to steer him back to the truck by the elbow, with him crankily mumbling something about the IRS and tax evasion and substantial penalties or whatever.

To her relief he'd immediately fallen asleep, head lolling in the passenger's seat beside her as she drove, later waking up to swear at the other drivers. Again, something she'd never seen him do before.

The next day Mike showed up at her room before breakfast, and drove Rainbow Dash and her shoebox into town to somebody called a tax accountant, who promised that for a fee, she could straighten it all out. Fee paid, he then drove her to the D.M.V. followed by the Navy Federal Credit Union, standing beside her at the counter until every last check had been deposited into her new account, right eye twitching over his fresh cast.

Problem solved.

Not. Entirely.

In addition to crankiness, Mike'd also been dozing off a lot, like now beside her during the morning briefing in the Ready Room. Rainbow booted Mike. He shook his head, caught himself and then acted like he was paying attention.

Okay, so things were tight these days; you grabbed sleep whenever you could, but earlier that morning in Dirty Shirt, Mike's bunk mate, Tornado, complained once more to Rainbow about Mike's sleeping habits (At least it wasn't about the snoring. One good thing about Mike breaking his nose was that his slightly deviated septum had finally been corrected.) ever since they'd all shipped out from 'Jersey as a squadron - _like she was Mike's wife and could do something about it!_

As if Tornado's complaints weren't enough, while she was trying to finish her cheese omelet and home fries before the morning briefing, Mike snapped at her over how much coffee she'd had with breakfast until she calmly pointed out that he'd already had six cups himself as the steam catapult overhead thumped, rattling their dishes. He abruptly got up and moved to a different mess table, back turned while downing a seventh.

"Dismissed."

As Mike and Rainbow rose, the squadron commander pulled Mike aside, waving her on. Rainbow continued to the elevator to the flight deck, not thinking anything about it, so that she was going through the usual preflight checks in the cockpit of her Hornet when she noticed Mike climbing into his own, face set.

Normally, Rainbow found Mike origami-ing himself into the cramped space amusing – something she'd learned not to show early on – the anti-g suit layered over his flight suit tight, long arms and legs exaggerated by the snugness, like a spider folding itself into a crevice. His canopy slid down as he fastened his helmet, the reflected glare of sunrise obscuring his face.

Not that he'd made eye contact.

Oh. Well.

Finished with her own pre-flight check, Lt. Dash taxied her ordnance loaded Hornet into position on the gently heaving deck, latched into the catapult, and sat waiting for the signal to launch, Mike in line behind her.

Whatever it was the squadron leader wanted to talk to her wingmate about was none of Lt. Dash's business.

Minutes later the two of them were banking over the Mediterranean coast, just one more routine flight over a land of oil, ancient history, and endless quarrels.


	44. Tailhook 17

It was over in seconds.

Cruising up the coast of Syria after launching in the Mediterranean, Lt.'s Schmidt and Dash had been alerted by radar of two rapidly approaching bogies, quickly identified as Syrian MiG-21s.

Rapidly closing at 100 miles out, Lt. Dash hailed them, gaining no response as they skimmed over the barren, rocky coastline.

70 miles and closing.

Rapid conferring back and forth between the Abraham Lincoln and the two Hornets.

Permission was granted to defend themselves according to the rules of engagement.

At 50 miles Lt. Dash hailed the approaching Syrians once more, issuing a final warning, receiving a missile lock in response.

At 300 meters, one of the two MiG 21s released a missile, targeting Lt. Dash, who easily evaded the oncoming ordnance so that it harmlessly detonated over the Mediterranean as she looped back from the northwest, releasing a sidewinder.

Lt. Schmidt, turned hard port, engaging the other MiG 21 as it dropped into Lt. Dash's flight path from behind, g-forces pushing him back into his seat, hiccing as he accelerated, releasing a second sidewinder, which missed.

Alarms went off in Lt. Schmidt's cockpit as the Hornet began to yaw uncontrollably – "Mayday! Mayday!" — his starboard engine flamed and then went dark sending the Hornet into a full spin at 30,000 feet so that Schmidt briefly blacked out. – "Mayday! Mayday!" — At 10,000 feet, Lt. Schmidt came to and pulled the ejection seat lever, the explosive charges on the surrounding canopy firing, blowing the transparent cover to one side as the rockets under him slammed him hurtling sideways in the opposite direction of his helmet, the straps on his parachute digging painfully into his shoulders as the silk deployed and the Hornet collided with the rocky desert floor in a huge, dirty orange fireball.

The second MiG 21 exploded on the horizon, showering the desert with hot debris. As he drifted downward, trying to direct his controlled fall, Lt. Schmidt looked up and made out Lt. Dash's Hornet as it banked and began circling the area where the remains of his Hornet burned.

A second pair of MiG 21s shot from the west, one breaking off for a strafing run. Lt. Dash broke off from her circling, banking and then looping between the two MiG 21s.

Mike looked up from watching the rapidly approaching ground rising to meet him. A flat, polychrome disk of light flared horizontally from his wingmate's aircraft followed by a concussion that left his ears bleeding.

The Syrians exploded unheard, twin fireballs silently raining debris onto the desert floor within the flat metallic hush inside Lt. Schmidt's head.

Lt. Dash's Hornet faltered, jerking sideways, nose angling downward. There was a distant flash, what might have been a body flying away, dragged by a 'chute, and the second Hornet slammed into a mountainside in the flat total silence as Lt. Schmidt landed hard on the side of one foot, collapsing sideways onto the gravelly hardpan of Syria, parachute billowing behind him.


	45. Tailhook 18

After rescuing the survival pack that had been tethered to his flight suit from a nearby clump of desiccated thorn bushes, Mike finished bundling up his parachute and glanced at his watch and the little compass threaded onto the strap. He'd seen Rainbow's Hornet go down over…he sighted down his arm to where smoke still rose from the burning fighter… there. He swung it a few degrees to the right… and where he thought he'd seen her bailing out over… there.

Shading his eyes, he looked up. The sun was midway on the eastern horizon and the day was heating up. He unzipped his flight suit and checked the standard issue loaded 9mm Beretta and its spare clips holstered under his right arm. Not that it would do him any good if the locals got to him first, but the uncomfortable daily dig into his ribs was reassuring.

Ears throbbing and shoulders aching, with sweat streaming down his face and the back of his neck, Mike unlaced the g-suit overlaying his flight suit on the lower half of his body, pocketing the cords that had bound him in and abandoning the now pointless trousers in a heap along with the tightly packaged life raft under a concealing thorn bush. After dosing himself with painkillers washed down with the limited water he found in the survival pack, Mike pushed his way through the thick dry underbrush to where he thought he'd seen the flutter of a parachute roughly a mile away, feeling almost as if an invisible string was stretched taught between him and where he was headed.

Thirty minutes later, flight suit half off, the sleeves knotted around his waist after having found a game trail through the brush and boulders, Mike found the 'chute but not Lt. Dash tangled high in the gnarled branches of what had to be the oldest tree in the world. What such a tree, with it's tiny silvery leaves and abundant little green fruit was doing this far out in the middle of dry brush and small boulders, Mike had no idea.

Nor did he care.

Pulling a flare out of his survival pack, Mike walked away from the tree, staying within its shadow. Still no rescue aircraft— what looked like a MiG 21 was now circling the dwindling column of smoke where his own Hornet had gone down. Further down the arid mountain valley was a line of dust and the glint of sun on metal and glass.

Shit.

Replacing the flare, he stepped back beneath the concealing branches. Where the hell had Dash gone?

Something lightly brushed the top of his head. Starting, Mike looked up and saw a boot. He followed the boot with his eyes to where it joined a leg and on up to where Dash hung suspended in by her chute lines, eyes closed, head tilted to the side, arms spread like Christ on the cross in one of his grandmother's many pictures that overflowed her house.

Hoping she wasn't dead, Mike grasped her above the knees and yanked hard, intending to catch her before she hit the ground.

The lines held fast. He looked over one aching shoulder. Across the ragged brush clogging of the acres of ground between him and the dust clouds were coming faster. There must be a road in the brush somewhere that he'd missed.

Damn.

Even if she was dead, he couldn't just leave her dangling there for the birds to salvage. If dead, the ground was too hard and dry to bury her, so he'd have to pile rocks on the body so that if things ever got better in this thinly disguised cat box, somebody could retrieve it. Regardless, he was going to have to climb the tree and cut her down and then hide the both of them somewhere in the rough terrain if she was alive until they could determine if what was coming their way was friendly.

Mike scrambled as far up the gnarled trunk as he could in a shower of loose bark and little green… good grief, were those olives? Boots skidding soundlessly down the trunk, teetering precariously with with one hand in the middle of Dash's back to steady himself, he quickly fumbled in a side pocket and pulled out a small hooked folding knife after pressing the side of her throat and finding a pulse.

At his touch, Dash opened her eyes and dazedly smiled down him, lips moving. Slicing a line with the knife, Mike shook his head, placing his free hand over her mouth to silence her in case someone was close enough to hear her and give them away.

Pale blue wings flared out from her shoulders, knocking his hand away and tangling in the branches surrounding them. Startled, Mike wobbled and then overbalanced, pitching aside the knife and then catching her around the waist on the way down to break his fall. His sudden weight was enough to rip the parachute and lines free from the branches holding her, soundlessly spilling them heavily to the ground with her on top, the parachute billowing down around them in a shower of green olives and broken branches.

Beneath the canopy of silk, Dash raised herself on her elbows, helmet jammed crookedly down over her eyes before she clumsily unbuckled and dropped it to the side.

Hair matted with sweat, she said something, scratched hands cupping his bloody ears, eyes closing as she abruptly fell asleep on top of Mike.

Mike slid out from under her as gently as he could, pushing aside the silk they were swathed in, retrieving and pocketing the knife before rolling her over and releasing her parachute harness straps, hoping there weren't any internal injuries.

The wings, if Mike wasn't suffering the after-effects of having clipped his helmet on the canopy as he punched out, were gone.


	46. Tailhook 19

"Son of a _bitch_." Mike muttered under his breath, looking down at the deep dry gully slashing across the meandering game trail he'd been following through the brush. He shifted his load: two survival packs on one shoulder and Lt. Dash slung over the other in a fireman's carry. A drift of heat and smoke caressed his back – the mechanical failure which had stranded them both had also ignited the surrounding dry vegetation, turning the horizon behind them black with smoke as the expanding wildfire gobbled up the dense tinder dry desert growth, the rising wind urging it and them westwards towards the Mediterranean.

Having helped subdue acres of wildfire for pay back home while still in high school and then University during the long hot dry Midwestern summers, he knew how such blazes worked – all it would take was an increase in wind speed and it would come roaring down on them even faster than before. Even if he had a shovel and the time to build a fire brake or a light a counter fire, the convoy of armed trucks had spotted them when he'd been forced to haul ass across what looked like a dry lake bed by the fire.

Able to hear them or not, the few automatic rounds fired in Mike's direction told him for certain that they were anything but friendly– he'd ducked back into the burning vegetation, zigzagging as best he could, dodging wildlife as it fled the oncoming inferno behind them, actually keeping pace for a few yards with a small herd of weird looking deer before they leapt the wide gully ahead of him, leaving him behind to swear at their rapidly diminishing backsides.

Another spattering puff of shots at his feet and Mike scrambled downwards with his load, dropping the packs, as he slid-skidded his way down the side of the gully and ran along the bone-dry main channel, looking for a low spot to scramble up so he could get them back under cover, keeping to the harder surfaces, expecting at any second to be gunned down from above.

The gulch meandered left, then right, and then forked. Mike charged heavily down the right, Lt. Dash limp across his shoulders. Breathing fast and legs cramping, he rounded a clump of boulders and dry sticks, only to stumble over a log protruding from the dusty stream bed before pitching full length into what had once been a pool at the base of a long dry waterfall, Dash landing beside him.

The Beretta dug into his side. Light-headed and dry-mouthed, Mike rolled over just enough to pull it out of the holster under his right arm, eyes scanning the upper edges of the steep-sided gully he'd gotten them trapped in. He'd seen the clips of the fuel-drenched downed pilot deliberately set ablaze, the journalists and aid workers crudely hacked to death to prove whatever point the sword wielder was trying to make… (Oh God, and what they did to women!)

Hell, if it came to that, he'd do her first and then himself: no shame there. Not if it spared his mother and his uncle from having to see either one of them deliberately burned to death as recorded on somebody's cell phone or stills of their severed heads dangling from somebody's hands, their bodies dragged behind one of those armed trucks by the feet splattered all over CNN like so much excrement.

Belly down and no longer sweating, Mike cautiously slithered across the dry gravelly channel, dragging Dash behind him one-handed beneath the protruding log that had sent them flying and the hollowed out ledge under it so that they were hidden from behind as well as hopefully above, maybe buying them time until sundown which was only a few hours away.

Problem was, even if the growing conflagration drove their pursuers off and he could backtrack to their lost packs (and if the packs hadn't been found by their pursuers), they were out of water and any flare he set off could be easily lost in the rising smoke – something he preferred not to think about along with his growing dehydration.

Cautiously Mike eased his wingmate up against him, putting an arm around her shoulders, sidearm across her chest, and tipping her head back with his free hand. She was still alive– he peeled up one of her eyelids and then the other, watching her pupils react equally to the sudden light. He didn't think she was concussed, but her prolonged unconsciousness was alarming. With his free hand, he loosened her flight suit so that it flopped around her shoulders as he fumbled around her inner pockets, feeling for more ammo in case they got cornered here, fighting the urge to apologize, only pausing in his search when his fingers brushed against a hard, flat, angular object.

That damned journal of hers.

She'd shown it to him more than once, even offering to let him try it, but after Mike's bad run-in with what went on behind the mirror, he didn't want to know any more about the book or where it came from than he had to, ignoring her whenever she pulled it out and started writing, laughing softly to herself. He also didn't think she realized he noticed her looking at him and then quickly glance away while slamming the cover shut.

Dust and gravel trickled down.

Pausing mid grope, Mike glanced at the motion from the corner of his eye. Above them outlined against a sky that was little more than billowing smoke and flying ash, a heavily bearded man in a ragged mixture of street clothes and camo cradling a Kalashnikov paused, looked past where the two of them huddled, and walked away lighting a cigarette after taking a long, painful-looking piss that erratically splashed inches from Mike's boots, the strong smelling liquid quickly absorbed by the parched ground.

Almost hyperventilating, Mike crouched with his back against the dry stone sucking on a pebble, Rainbow pressed behind him for several heartbeats before cautiously pulling out the journal, head aching and mouth painfully dry.

It was nothing remarkable, a bit worn at the edges. In fact, it looked one of those cheap diaries some high school girl might get at the nearest mall if the nearest mall weren't several thousand miles away. There was a glittery purple pen tucked in the spine, cap somewhat chewed.

Cautiously he pulled the pen out and opened the little book.

If this didn't work, he could always make like the insurgent above and use the pages to wipe his ass – though if they both somehow managed to survive this and Dash found out about it, she'd probably break his nose again.

Cautiously Mike wrote, "Anybody there?"


	47. Tailhook 20

Almost a minute passed and then, in loopy handwriting, the kind that would use hearts or flowers or even smiley faces to dot i's and j's with, with reckless abandon but didn't, the words, "You're _not_ Rainbow Dash." swirled across the page.

How did… in spite of the situation and his now silently thudding head, Mike realized his handwriting obviously didn't match Rainbow's usual hasty scrawl. Close, only Mike tended to print over cursive, mixing the two without even thinking about it, the despair of every teacher since third grade until he'd learned how to two-finger type. "It's Lt. Schmidt."

"Mike? So Rainbow Dash finally persuaded you to talk to us?"

"No!"

"Something's wring…" the ink paused, scratched out "wring" and replaced it with "wrong".

"Yes."

"Put Rainbow on."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"She's unconscious."

 _"What did you do to her?"_ If ink could be suspicious, this ink was.

Oh for crissake, "Accident!"

"Did you cause it?"

Well, he had, indirectly— but now was not the time to play the blame game, "Explain later. Situation out of control."

A long pause. Mike was about to toss the book aside and risk detection by moving the both of them further down the dry channel in search of water as hot ash sifted down around their hiding place, when…

"This is serious. I'll have to break the ban. Can you sing?"

What the… still, any port in a storm. Mike hesitated, eyes scanning what he could see of the lip of the gulch where he'd last seen one of their hunters and wrote a cautious, "Yes."


	48. Tailhook 21

_It started when Dash noticed that her wingmate had left his wallet on top of one of the vending machines at the VOQ after he'd dropped her off from a day's worth of unsolicited financial literacy training, starting with somebody who called themselves a tax accountant._

 _She retrieved the worn little leather folder, figuring she'd return it to him in the Officer's Mess – he refused to eat off base because on base was cheaper or free depending on where you went, and maybe razz him a bit for his uncharacteristic forgetfulness._

 _Only he never showed up._

 _So it had sat in front of her on the table as she ate while reading her emails on her smart phone and writing in the journal that linked her to Equestria, figuring he'd come in later._

 _Later never came._

 _So she took an evening run, careful with her ankle, which had finally stopped aching and was now merely stiff and in need of exercise._

 _Sometimes they ran together, but not this time._

 _Stuck with Mike's wallet and irritated that she was going to be responsible for someone else's money, ID, and credit cards for who knows how long, Lt. Dash sifted through her iPhone's directory and found his number. If Mike was going to be careless enough to leave his wallet laying around for anybody to go through, she was damned if she was going to be responsible for it until he got around to claiming it!_

 _Only instead of Mike, a woman's voice answered the phone, with the same soft twang to it which sometimes surfaced in Mike's whenever he became frustrated or upset._

 _Sooooo, Mike had a girlfriend… who knew?_

 _Okay, then, why didn't he bring her on the camping trip like a lot of other people had their S.O.s?_

 _Or even to their graduation last week?_

 _Still, Cheapskate was so quiet about his personal life that learning that there was a woman in it aside from his mother was kind of exciting. Did they have kids?_

 _If so, how many and why didn't he ever pass their pictures around like everybody else did? (The thought of her taciturn wingmate changing diapers at 2 a.m. while on leave was like catnip.)_

 _Anyway, was she Navy?_

 _Was she a dependa?_

 _Oh please, don't let her be a dependa – Mike could be a bit of a stick in the mud at times, but he didn't deserve that!_

 _"Ohhhhh, stop it!" Dash'd thought to herself, "You're nosy as Rarity!" She hastily cut the rest of the thought off as the woman gave her directions to return the missing wallet off base, thanking her for finding it; Mike was frantic over having misplaced it. He'd dumped every drawer in the house onto the floor looking for it._

 _"Ooooooh, dis gonna be good!" Even though Rainbow Dash felt just a little disappointed at Mike's having a girlfriend, it was sort of exciting finding out about it, she thought with a giggle as she steered her freshly re-licensed '82 Triumph Bonneville through the off-base evening traffic, "He's been holding out on everybody – wonder if they went to high school together?"_

 _Anyway, she'd pulled up in front of the little 1930s bungalow that she'd once promised to help to rip old shingles off of sight unseen as part of a bet and killed the engine before hanging her helmet off the handlebars._

 _Mike was doggedly clipping the ratty little hedge in the front when she stopped. He'd turned around at her call, nose still swollen from the procedure two days before, electric hedge trimmer dangling from one large hand, hardly frantic looking at all._

 _There were no toys on the porch._

 _Hmmmmm._

 _(Maybe they were in the back yard?)_

 _Abandoning the clippers, he'd walked over and she'd handed him his wallet, the two of them making awkward conversation when Mike's mom rolled out of the front door, a familiar black German shepherd in a service harness padding along behind her as she glided down the ramp and onto the front_ _sidewalk._

 _Well, that certainly explained why she'd sounded familiar over the phone!_

 _They'd sat talking as twilight settled around them, Mike off to one side nursing a Coke because he was on painkillers, quietly hiding behind the day's newspaper, big feet in a pair of worn flip-flops propped up on the railing, occasionally eyeing them both over the edge of the paper as they'd chattered away with Indigo the Service dog patiently sitting beside his mistress._

 _After a while Mike got up, padded into the house and came out with two well-worn guitars, handing one to his mother without a word, the two of them playing with Agnes his mother, singing in a voice which reminded Rainbow of Applejack and her family almost to the point of tears. Eventually Agnes passed Rainbow her guitar, and Dash followed Mike through the unfamiliar tunes as his mother sang softly in the darkness of lost loves, cabins on mountainsides, and green valleys with unforgiving soil before they all went inside for a late supper of leftovers._

 _Later she'd come to the back door after helping with the dishes to find Mike quietly playing one of the old guitars on the back stoop in the dark, singing something in a slightly nasal lilting tenor under his breath that sounded like, "…pussywillows cat-tails soft winds and roses, rainpools in the woodland, water to my knees, shivering, quivering, the warm breath of spring…"_

 _Startled, she'd only heard him sing once before and then only over an F-14's communication system, Dash had stood transfixed, leaning against the door frame, hand lightly touching the rusty screen of the back door in the shabby little kitchen, she'd looked down as Agnes parked beside her, finger over her lips, eyes sparkling. When Rainbow Dash started to push the door open to join him, his mother put her hand on Dash's arm, pulling her down, whispering in her ear, "Don't. If he thinks somebody's listening, he'll stop. It's the only way I ever get to hear him sing."_

Which is what Rainbow heard as she awoke, covered in sweat to a rhythmic jouncing that shook her entire body, the world retreating from her.


	49. Tailhook 22

The last thing Rainbow Dash remembered was punching out, the canopy flying past her, and then nothing, so that waking up draped over Mike's shoulders as he stagger-ran down the remains of what looked like a road made of half-buried stone blocks was pretty weird.

Even weirder, Mike was singing loudly while clouds of smoke and ash swirled around them both. Coughing from the unexpected smoke, she started kicking while pounding on his back yelling, "Put me down!" until he abruptly stopped, swaying as she slid backwards, dropping to the half-buried stone road so that she faced him as he sang, staring past her, "...He came down through fields of green...on the summer side of life..."

Feeling like she'd fallen off of a cliff and bounced the entire way down, Rainbow grabbed Mike's shoulders and shook him, noticing that his blankly staring eyes were no longer blue but purple. "Oh crap… Twilight, what's going on?"

"...he prayed all night."

Mike's voice shifted higher, becoming softer, feminine as Twilght Sparkle's familiar voice came out of his mouth, singing, "Not much further, we're almost there!" Mike's head lolled, eyes briefly rolling back in their sockets, flashing blue and then purple again as they settled, focusing on Rainbow Dash, " _I'm losing him fast, just follow!"_ He sang in both his and Twilight Sparkle's voice, taking a step forward, shouldering Rainbow Dash aside, one cool, clammy hand pawing at her bare upper arm, fumbling blindly down it to take her's as he resumed his stagger-run down the road, which Rainbow now noticed was paralleled by broken pillars randomly sticking up out of the now burning brush on either side like crooked teeth.

"Then he walked into a house, where love had been misplaced, his chance to waste…"

Rainbow found her feet unwilling to move, jerking Mike to an abrupt halt so that he reeled drunkenly around to face her once more, still singing.

"...He prayed all night..."

He shook his head as a bush burst into flame beside them, saying in Twilght's voice, "Follow, before I lose him completely!" Mike started running again, Rainbow hitching up and zipping up her flight suit with her free hand she as broke into a run beside the now singing Mike, letting him take the lead, his breath now coming in loud sobbing gulps, eyes staring blankly ahead, still singing, "...and if you saw him now...you'd wonder why he would cry..."

One after the other, they leapt a ruined pillar laying in rounded sections across the road, the wind shifting directions so that through the smoke Rainbow caught a glimpse of the remains of a stone building where water trickled from between fallen walls and toppled pillars, an unexpected patch of green in the barren landscape.

"—the whole day long..."*

(*An old Gordon Lightfoot soldier's song adrift in these days of mass-produced rap, electronica and highly groomed boy bands. Mike's uncle was really his great-uncle, a Viet Nam vet who came home and disappeared into his lawn mower engines, his roofing jobs, and his scrap yard, and who would have been quite familiar with this song, maybe even introducing it to him.)


	50. Tailhook 23

_Peoples come and peoples go, single threads in a tapestry the size of the Earth, leaving their dreams scattered upon the desert floor to be scavenged or marveled at by their successors, who in turn are scattered to the four winds, leaving behind the dry shells of their own dreams to be marveled at or quarried in turn as the land they played out those dreams on continues it's own dreams with or without them – and Epona's Mirror was one such place._

 _To the Neanderthals, the perfectly round spring welling up out of the valley floor was a marvel, a reflection of the moon even as it reflected the deep blue of the sky back at itself. Their simple offerings of bones with the outlines of horses and women scratched upon them were soon swept aside by the Mureybet people with their rectangular houses and simple pottery, the Mirror becoming a shrine and a well in the high desert in a land held by the Sumerians, the Eblaites, the Akkadians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Amorites, and Babylonians followed by the Persians – all leaving the shells of their dreams for lizards to bask upon and peasants to pull apart piece by piece by piece to build their sheep pens and grain bins as the next wave of dreams washed over them in tides of blood, fire, and administrative paperwork._

 _Alexander held the land for the blink of an eye, the Mirror one more possession in his treasure house of Empire, little regarded for of its humbleness, it's remoteness, in his inexorable march to India– never seeing his face reflected back at him framed by the blue of infinity in its water as he rode into history on Bucephalus._

 _The Romans followed, with their temples and roads – and the Mirror gained a roof, a single oculus overhead, a round portal allowing what was now a shrine to a Celtic horse goddess, a protectoress of cavalry to stare up into infinity, the water of it's making quietly surging from below, silently overspilling the acanthus carven lip which now encircled it in Pentalic marble – only to become a shrine to "The Virgin of Horses" by the the Byzantines and then the Crusaders, because of the robed woman seated upon a crescent moon flanked by horses, some with wings, carved into the fronting pediment, the starry mosaics overhead celebrating Epona plastered over in honor of the mother of a god with huge dark eyes painted atop, only to be whitewashed in turn by their heirs who despised all imagery: the Umayyads, the Ottomans, the Arabs– all in their turn leaving the bones of their dreams scattered upon the desert floor, so that the temple turned church turned mosque surrounding the Well of the Horsees, was now a forsaken place of tumbled pillars and mosaic stones, the surrounding olive trees all gone but a handful untended, once more open to the sky, dreaming its own dreams, reflecting the moon back at itself even as gazelles, foxes, and the rare flock of goats and the furtive boys who tended them, partook of Epona's Mirror's blessing unseen as those who would re-mold the land that cradled it in their image, a land which only answered to itself, battled to the death in far more important places._


	51. Tailhook 24

As they drew closer, Rainbow Dash realized that at first what she thought were tumbled stones and fallen logs surrounding the spring, _weren't._

Animals, dozens of animals, rose to their feet at their approach, the surrounding flames held at bay by the moisture welling up from the ground in this unlikely place. But they weren't the wild things that ran past and ahead of them, these were the abandoned, the forsaken, the ones left behind, fled into the wilderness to fend for themselves, their rising scent a hot, dusty barnyard smell in the furnace wind.

Mike slowed, pushing past sheep that had gone unshorn for so long that they had trouble walking from the weight of the filthy wool on their backs and their sides, a scrawny sheepdog standing guard. There were unkempt roosters and their shabby wives perched along the backs of dilapidated cows, scarred with old bullet wounds, spindly calves huddled against them. They passed a donkey with only one ear still dragged the remains of a plow, sores oozing from beneath its harness while horses, rawboned and limping, ribs and hips showing, loomed over a skinny one-eyed white cat, a kitten dangling from her mouth, while over there a camel missing a leg unfolded itself clumsily upright, while everywhere dogs of all shapes and sizes, filthy and matted, mingled with goats.

And they were silent.

And they were still.

And they all faced the spring, eyes expectant, the forgotten, the abused, the displaced –moving aside in silence as singing, Mike parted them as a ship parts the sea, Rainbow Dash in his wake, staring wildly around her amidst the blowing smoke and hot ashes.

Swaying drunkenly, Mike paused at the broken steps leading to what had once been Epona's Mirror, face white under the grime and dried sweat, gripping her hand so hard that her fingers hurt.

"When I tell you, jump, jump" he sang in Twilight Sparkle's voice, "I've done all I can."

His eyes went blue, and he started to topple.

Rainbow Dash caught him before he could fall.


	52. Tailhook 25

Abdul Karim, who left behind a humiliating life in Philadelphia cleaning the toilets of the Infidel after losing his job as a pizza delivery driver, watched the oasis through the drifting smoke from behind a broken pillar. He had noticed the spring and being thirsty, jumped off the back of the armed truck and shoved and kicked his way through the milling animals as the driver paused to confer with another coming the other way in their search for the fleeing Infidel.

While sucking down mouthful after mouthful of the piercingly cold fresh water, Karim realized that if those two were still alive, they would come here.

Yes, indeed. All living things needed water. They would come to this place, even if by accident, the water drawing them out of the burning maze and into the open and a clear shot.

All Karim needed was patience, and success would come.

He noticed the animals gathered around the ruins were beginning stir. Stifling a cough and blotting his watering eyes on his sleeve, Karim shouldered his Chinese-built Type-56, sighting in on the taller of the two through the haze of burning vegetation, and steadying himself against the worn stone, squeezed off a burst.


	53. Tailhook 26

Rainbow Dash screamed in spite of herself, throwing herself at Mike so that he landed belly down on the steps as the stream of lead ripped past overhead. One of the horses that had silently closed ranks behind them not a moment before panicked, rearing, it's high pitched whinnying abruptly cut off in a line of red splattering them both as the animal heavily collapsed sideways, eyes wide, back arched, legs kicking and then stiffening among the now frightened animals as they milled and shoved each other in the now too small space.

"Go up the steps, walk into the mirror – I can only hold it open for a minute or two."

Eyes wide in horror, Rainbow Dash looked away from where the horse had fallen to see that Mike had started pulling himself up the steps beside her, only he wasn't getting very far. Hands scrabbling at the worn stones, he glanced over at her, eyes blue once more, his expression that of a child whom that has been struck hard across the face for no good reason.

Another burst of automatic rifle fire overhead, and any self-control the livestock around them had, left, turning the green space into a chaotic bleating, barking, whinnying, mooing tangle in their fright. Taking advantage of the chaos, Lt. Dash grabbed Mike by the back of his OD green undershirt, hauling him upright, nearly tumbling them both backwards into the seething mass of frightened creatures before pitching forward and half dragging him, the two of them made it up the little rise.

Mirror? What mirror? Where the hell was a mirror?

Expecting to be cut down at any second, Dash spun, another burst, this one imbedding itself in the remains of a nearby mosaic wall in a stinging puff of tiny stones and mortar.

Whoever it was that was shooting at them was a terrible shot, but the next burst might not be so off… "Oh sweet Celestia!" Mike's eyes flickered a brief purple and he gave her a violent shove from behind, "Must I do EVERYTHING?"

With a yell, Rainbow Dash fell forward her, her reflection rising to meet her, left shoulder burning as she tumbled downwards in a mass of frigid crystalline bubbles in water that should have been inches deep, Mike plunged in after her, eyes closed, body suddenly limp, the water of Epona's Mirror closing over him like mercury.


	54. Tailhook 27

Karim gave a long ululating cry, success!


	55. Tailhook 28

The animals suddenly quieted heads turned towards the Mirror. Then with a bark, the sheepdog began circling the remnants of his flock, driving them around the dead horse, aiming them up the steps, and running along their backs as they streamed up the worn stone, urged them into the Mirror. A cow was next, clumsily scrambling up the steps gaining speed calling her calf to follow her, followed by another then another and another until the entire mooing, yelping, cackling mass of life poured into the Mirror, roosters driving their hens before them, a large emaciated hound snatching up the white cat and her kitten in his mouth on the run, the camel tolerating five more cats now clinging to it's bobbing withered hump, the donkey dragging it's broken plow up the cumbering steps, only to pause to kick it one more time so that the encumbrance and it's load of tangled branches finally shattered.

The newly freed creature looked back over one harness galled shoulder and brayed at Karim, loudly relieving itself before trotting into the Mirror.

Kareem, however, was too busy celebrating his victory to notice that a marvel had occurred in front of him as he ran up the steps, stepping over the steaming pile of turds, to claim his prize.

They were gone. He turned a complete circle, eyes scanning the burning brush, the trampled grass.

Nothing!

Swearing in English and Arabic, Karim kicked the worn carved lip of the spring and squeezed off a long, frustrated stream of ordnance at the now smoke filled sky, which looked back at itself from the surface of Epona's Mirror, unperturbed.

Rage somewhat appeased Karim stooped, bringing up a handful of the cold liquid from the Mirror to his mouth, only to violently spit it out.

It was now bitter.


	56. Tailhook 29

Twilight Sparkle gave one last mental shove, head and horn snapping forward - the surface of the round mirror she'd suspended in her garden shattered and reformed as Mike and Rainbow Dash fell sideways out of it, rolling onto the grass as a bullet sang past, burying itself unheeded in one of the surrounding ancient trees.

Gasping, the alicorn sank back on her haunches, front legs splayed, ears and wings sagging with exhaustion. Spike ran forward to help her rise only to freeze, one taloned hand raised, mouth open in surprise and then delight as the garden suddenly filled with braying, bleating, cackling, and mooing refugees.


	57. Tailhook 30

_Stretching, Mike leaned back against the sun-warmed concrete of what had once been a pier jutting out into the Pacific, enjoying the distant sound of the waves at low tide and the simple sensation of just… being._

 _Rainbow Dash sat nearby, thoughtfully eating a slice of the horrible pizza she'd asked him to help her eat – calling him unexpectedly that afternoon, saying she'd won it in some charity raffle or other and it was too much for her alone. Anyway, there wasn't much else to do this close to shipping out. Would he maybe like to meet her somewhere and help her dispose of it?_

 _For some reason Mike went to the BX and bought a new shirt._

 _(Not that it was necessary. He had a handful of civvies he'd bought during his last year of University and maybe only wore once or twice a week.)_

 _He stopped off at the house and shaved._

 _(Not that he needed to, he'd shaved that morning.)_

 _He'd also used the cologne and aftershave his mother had given him for his birthday two years before, stashed away in a bottom drawer somewhere._

 _(But only because he'd break out if he didn't. The itching under his face mask the next morning as the two of them ferried their aircraft to their next assignment would be intolerable.)_

 _Then he'd changed into the new shirt and a loose pair of summer trousers from the back of his closet that he forgot he even owned…_

 _(…but ONLY because it was stinking hot outside and he looked ridiculous in shorts.)_

 _So he'd met her at the crumbling remains of a concrete pier that had once helped load troops and equipment onto transports to a long-gone war— a fine and private place to eat a terrible, cheap pizza and drink the beer she'd brought while watching the sun go down and the ships go by._

 _He'd eaten the pepperoni half._

 _Barefoot, she'd eaten the cheese half, wearing a simple sky blue halter dress he'd never seen her in before, surprising him. He'd almost not recognized her at first except for the greasy box and the six-pack she was holding, when he'd parked his truck along the beach road._

 _Mike almost but not quite put an arm around her shoulders from his stretch only to find himself up to his knees in the returning tide, the backs of his bare legs stinging with every slap of the extension cord his dad swung at him as he chased Mike's five year old self through the darkly rising surf, bellowing, "Hold still, you useless little sack of shit – I'll teach you to fuck with your old man!"_

 _Terrified, the much smaller Mike looked back over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Rainbow Dash as she sat by herself eating pizza in the last golden light of the day, back against the broken concrete... the rising tide slowing him, burning with each kiss of the plastic sheathed wire as his father caught up with him... grabbing him by the hair... bending him over the battered coffee table, setting Mike's legs and back on fire with each whistling blow…_

 _(…of crawling under his bed in the stiflingly hot trailer, hiccupping and unable to cry, sucking his thumb, the raised welts on the backs of his legs and shoulders aching in an explosion of blue sky and silver bubbles as a purple unicorn with wings drove his body forward…_ )

…Mike looked down into a rounded purple, scaly face, and screamed in the roaring silence of his head, legs and back on fire, rearing, coming down hard so that the sudden force of his front hooves hitting the marble floor slammed through his body, startling him into stillness, head down, breathing hard.

Lips moving while staring up at him, the creature that had been massaging Mike's legs cautiously edged back towards him. After patting Mike's side soothingly with four-fingered hands, it began once again to knead away the violent cramps that ran the entire length of all four of Mike's legs and back as he drained the water bucket the creature had cautiously slid in front of him.

And then another.

Followed by still yet another.


	58. Tailhook 31

CRASH!

Bang!

Rattle-rattle-rattle!

High in her workroom Twilight Sparkle winced at Mike's latest palace-shaking outburst two stories below – how unreasonable could someone be?

Thud! She reached out a hoof, steadying a teetering shack of books.

He'd awakened after nearly two days spent sleeping off his shared ordeal with Rainbow Dash, but after draining bucket after bucket of water and consuming most of a salt block, he began loudly demanding to know where Rainbow Dash was, that they had no right to hold him, and then he started rattling off strings of numbers that made absolutely no sense, while nearly punting poor Spike, who was only trying to help, out the window.

Not that it injured Twilight Sparkle's friend and assistant, but the solidly constructed dragon boy's feelings had been very badly hurt.

Sending Spike outside to help Fluttershy deal with the sudden influx of refugees, she decided to approach Rainbow Dash's bodyguard once he calmed himself down.

Bad idea.

Ohhhhh, bad BAD idea!

Still fatigued by the complex spell that had brought both her friend and this 250-pound problem home, she'd gone down to the guest room he'd trashed to see what could be done.

He'd backed into a corner at the sight of her, ears flattened, the whites of his eyes showing, yelling, "Stay out of my head!" before lunging at her with snapping teeth.

Rapidly backpedaling out the door and banging it shut it before he could get her, Twilight Sparkle realized that she'd forgotten how alarming an upset idle, unattached stallion could be – no wonder most of them were sent to the frontiers by their families once puberty hit until they settled down – and oh, Sweet Celestia, his boy-fangs – those should have been pulled when he was little as safety hazards!

And the _SMELL!_

The pungent blast of raw testosterone and terror he gave off had hit her like a nasal slap in the face when she'd unsealed the door to the room she'd put him in– maybe it was just as well she always met Ravi on the other side of the mirror if this was how human stallions handled the journey!

At once he started demanding where Rainbow Dash was, what had _she_ done to him – drowning out anything soothing Twilight Sparkle might have said, and where were his clothes, and, and, and, and…

Reluctant to call Fluttershy in from the courtyard to tranquilize him like an animal, she'd fled, sealing the door behind her with a wave of her horn. All right, so maybe she'd gone over the line when she'd taken over his body, but it had been an emergency and he HAD given his consent. And… maybe she could have tried something less intrusive, but the situation had been dire… If he'd only let her explain or at the very least apologize, this could be worked out!

Crash! Splinter! There went the desk – good thing it was an old worn-out one and only in there because she couldn't think of any other place to store it…

The door shuddered as Mike began slamming all 250+ of himself against it because his body wasn't built for exiting through the room's small, high window that overlooked her rose garden. The telltale hoofmarks on the wall that she'd noticed beneath it just as he charged at her told Twilight Sparkle he'd tried that route earlier. Judging by his reaction to being brought here, it was just as well she and Spike had taken his clothes away for cleaning while he was sleeping– there were all sorts of things in his pockets he could injure himself or someone else with in his current state of mind!

The slamming thuds were replaced by a sharp, persistent pounding: he must be trying to kick the door down with his back hooves – which was pointless because Twilight's magic infused the entire structure, strengthening it beyond an angry kick or body slam and more likely to cause than receive injury.

Realizing this, she contacted Big Mac and Shining Armor before Mike could really harm himself.

Her older brother and his large friend arrived half an hour later. After she'd explained what needed to be done before unsealing the door and then resealing it behind them, she'd fled to her workroom to sort individual dried rose petals, watching what was going on below through whatever reflective surfaces were available through the mirror suspended above her work table.

The din had been appalling in the small space as the two stallions had wrestled him around the room, Big Mac finally pinning the more lightly built Mike against the hoof-scarred wall, where he panted, shuddering, mumbling random numbers when he wasn't loudly demanding to know where Rainbow Dash was.

"Situation under control." Shining Armor reported through the reflective side of a flattened tin bucket, his blue mane was tangled over his eyes. He shook it clear, "Anyway, little sis, did you know this dude's deaf as a fence post?"


	59. Tailhook 32

Riding Mike had been all too easy, something Twilight Sparkle had done with animals, the un-self aware, whose minds rarely strayed beyond survival and naps in the sun. She'd been a dust-mote in a sunbeam, riding the currents, letting the situation carry her were it would, leaving in the blink of an eye, the ridden no worse for wear.

Mike had been different: calm patches interrupted by storms, festering places that hurt the bearer even when he didn't consciously realize it, affecting his actions in the world outside the bone shell he looked out of. Perhaps pony minds were similar, but Twilight Sparkle had no desire to find out because she'd have to spend the rest of her life staring suspiciously at her own kind from the corners of her eyes.

But the situation had been dire, and Mike had given his consent— only neither of them realized until too late what letting Twilight Sparkle do the steering would do to Mike. For her, it was mostly pleasant, like a recent memory of an afternoon on the beach spent with Rainbow Dash, or boring, like filling out something called a Flight Log until she'd broken through the surface, stepping into something about a large, angry being chasing a much younger Mike through a strange house that she'd quickly slammed door on as she followed his song between the worlds in her search for the controls that would let her guide him and her friend to safety.

For Mike, letting Twilight Sparkle take over had been like the time in high school he'd pierced his ears himself to please a girl he liked after overhearing that she liked earrings on a guy. Only his ears, rebelling against the dirty base metal studs, had swelled so painfully that a doctor had to remove them shortly after learning that the girl couldn't care less. The inflammation had eventually gone away and the raw, oozing holes had healed shut. But the painful realization that he'd been very, very stupid in trying to please somebody who didn't care still came back whenever Mike caught a glimpse of those two long-healed, barely noticeable scars in the mirror while shaving – Twilight Sparkle had been, as far as Mike's still rebelling psyche was concerned: a repeat, only far more intimate.

Wondering if she'd ever be able to repair her inadvertent damage, Twilight Sparkle unsealed the door and stepped back, gasping in dismay at the ruins of her guest room.

What Mike hadn't wrecked by himself, the three stallions had finished in their wild rumpus. Maybe she should have restrained him with magic after all. But something told Twilight Sparkle as she cautiously approached where Big Mac had Mike pinned, magic used so obviously might have tipped his mind even further over the edge. As to using one of Fluttershy's concoctions, it doubtlessly would have ended up soaking into the now tattered rug!

Following her brother's hunch, Twilight Sparkle gripped a piece of chalk between her teeth, and hoping that Mike could read, (Ravi could, and he could also do long-division in his head, but one never knew.) carefully printed on the closest wall in large, wobbly letters, "Rainbow Dash is all right."

Without releasing any pressure, Big Mac used his head to steer Mike's so that he looked right at her words. Mike stopped mumbling the mysterious strings of numbers, and focused.

"She was injured. She is at the hospital in Ponyville having her wing seen to."

Mike relaxed, slightly.

"You are not being held here. You were ill. Do you want to go and see her?"

A slight nod. His breathing had slowed, deepening; the whites of his eyes not so obvious.

"Can I trust you not to run away or further damage my home?"

Another nod, and Big Mac stepped away so that Mike staggered, catching himself, face carefully blank.

"These two," Twilight Sparkle paused and pointed at her brother and then Big Mac with the chalk gripped in her teeth, "Will take you to her after you have cleaned yourself up and had something to eat." Twilight Sparkle's jaws were starting to ache, but she had the feeling that had she used magic to control the chalk the way she usually did, Mike might have become even more unmanageable.

Twilight Sparkle spat out the chalk, saying, "He smells terrible. Would the two of you take him to the bathhouse out back and help him clean up?" She gestured at the remains of her guest room with one hoof, "I'll deal with this mess later. Afterwards? Have Spike show you what's in the ice box and DON'T let him get colic if he overeats or it'll start all over again!"

Exhausted, Twilight Sparkle stepped back to allow the three stallions to pass her, Mike sandwiched between the two of them. Let them deal with him, she was going to take a long, nap and hopefully they would all be gone by the time she woke up.


	60. Tailhook 33

Though Mike had spent a little over a decade flying one aircraft or another, riding in Pinkie Pie's idea of a flying machine was the worst experience in the air he'd had to date aside from the time he was 16 and while flying solo for the first time behind the control wheel of an old Cessna 172, he'd clipped a buzzard.

Alarmingly enough, Pinkie's alleged aircraft was pedal powered.

Even more alarming, Pinkie Pie was the main power source.

Okay, so she had plenty of energy, but she was highly distractable. They'd be whirring along in a straight line from point A to point B and suddenly she'd see something interesting (every 30 seconds it seemed) and shoot over towards points C-H to see what was there, before remembering what had initially caught her attention, picking up at point I and eventually arriving at point Z, which by the time she got close enough to investigate, whatever it was got bored and had wandered off.

Holy shit, was that a dragonfly off the port side? Oh no, and she'd seen it!

Hearing coming and going, Mike sagged heavily against the candy-striped railing as the flying unliklihood lurched starboard ten feet off the ground before abruptly dropping to three so that the wheat field they were currently skimming hissed and rattled, individual stalks catching at the undercarriage of Pinkie's flying torture machine.

Mike closed his eyes. It didn't help.

Luckily there was a certain redundancy built into the impossible aircraft that almost but not quite made up for the Pink One's erratic flight pattern should she tire herself out: her backup engine, Cheese Sandwich.

Pinkie's fiance had a duplicate pedal arrangement on the other side powering a secondary rotor, which acted as a stabilizer to Pinkie's, nonstop travelogue pouring out of her mouth as she pedal-trotted behind the control wheel, which she operated with her mouth when she wasn't making continuous reports on the weather, lunch she'd had three days before, what that duck they just startled was wearing, and was Mike having fun yet?

HELL NO!

Cheese was a good man… horse… pony… _whatever_ , in a fight, but as a navigator, he was total shit. (Though the accordion bolted to the side of his pedal mechanism, which under other circumstances, was interesting. The faster Cheese pedaled, the louder the big squeeze box got, so maybe the sonic assault Mike was currently experiencing was the Pony answer to a high-end sound system minus the window rattling bass thump?) Cheese had let the map blow away at 100 feet without the least sign of concern, and was currently happily singing a duet with Pinkie about what they could do if only they had fifty pounds of kumquat-flavored jellybeans and a fishing pole!

Bizarrely-flavored candy aside, Pinkie Pie had somehow geared a drum set to the undercarriage hooked directly into the drive train of the main rotor so that she'd landed with a drum roll complete with a rim shot, bringing the whole noisy improbability to an equally improbable fifteen point landing where Mike, Shining Armor, and Big Mac stood waiting in a nearby meadow for a ride to Cloudsdale so that they could pick up a few personal items for Rainbow Dash before going to the hospital in Canterlot, the whole alarming contraption settling on the close cropped grass like a renegade State Fair midway complete with flashing lights, clanging bells, and whooping sirens.

Anyway, if Pinkie Pie ever intended to use this thing in a stealthy manner, she'd forgotten to include it in the plans. No, wait, she'd probably used the plans to line her cat box with, assuming she had a cat, and had pretty much done what she damn well pleased.

The fact it flew at all was a marvel and that the other two stallions calmly expected him to get on the damned thing WITH them, doubly so. There was a railed platform between the two drive mechanisms, but no safety gear in sight unless you counted the deranged looking… doorstop? …half deflated pool toy? …toothless baby alligator? parked bonelessly in the middle of the deck, refusing to get out of the way as if there was nothing in the least alarming whatsoever about this FAA - assuming there even WAS an FAA in this world - reject.

Knowing better but doing it anyway, Mike had awkwardly trotted onto the platform, stepped over the presumed alligator, and made room for the other two, wondering why in hell he was doing this and lacking anything even remotely resembling a car, why couldn't they just WALK to Cloudsdale if it was only a mile or so away?

Five minutes into the rocking, reeling, jolting, honking, and hooting flight, complete with accordion-snare-drum-gong-siren-whoopie-cushion in-flight soundtrack, Mike remembered his uncle's casual remark one day while the two of them loaded a balky horse onto a trailer that humans were lucky, they could vomit.

Horses couldn't so they got colic.

At the time, the remark hadn't meant anything to Mike. His uncle said a lot of stuff that Mike dismissed, but this he remembered as airsick for the first time in his life, Mike tried to cut loose over the not terribly safe looking safety rail.

Nothing came.

Eyes clamped shut and stomach churning, he sank back on his haunches, wishing for the tenth time that the main engine, no Pinkie Pie, would stop noticing butterflies and now fireflies and oh God, not BATS as the sky darkened, that she needed to loudly introduce herself to.

He knew this because, perhaps thanks to the medallion Big Mac had wordlessly tossed over his neck, his hearing had returned.

Somewhat.

So, guts wanting to come up his throat and throttle him as his hearing came and went, Mike was just about to lie down on his side and die until he saw the reason why they'd endured Nightmare Airlines as it rose up over the western horizon, all pink and gold as the sun started to sink behind the world.


	61. Tailhook 34

So this was Cloudsdale. Mike stepped cautiously onto what looked like densely packed couch stuffing in the red-gold sunlight of early evening.

When he didn't fall through, Mike hastily, trotted away from Pinkie Pie's flying outrage, shaking his close-cropped mane, leaving Pinkie, now hugging and baby-talking at the semi-comatose toothless alligator with her forelegs so that she crouched upright on her back legs on the polychrome deck, "Gummy" flopped gracelessly over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes pretending to be a baby, Cheese Sandwich nearby setting out a picnic.

Still queasy, he sucked on the lozenge after swallowing the remains of the paper bag it came in that Big Mac had slipped him just before they landed. He wouldn't have consumed the bag, except not having hands, he'd been unable to to get the weird-tasting sweet out of the container and had settled for eating the whole thing while the other two stallions, who had somehow managed to get their own lozenges out of the bag, tried not to stare.

"I think," Shining Armor finally said in a cautious, sticky voice, "You've got enough of that stuff in you so that you won't fall through the clouds – follow us."

Fall?

Mike froze in mid-step.

Through the clouds?

This place was insane!

Still the other two didn't seem to think anything of it, so Mike cautiously followed them, trying not to gawp at a winged mare with three little ones drifting in close formation behind her as they landed with varying degrees of success on a nearby billow – the smallest tumbling sideways before catching herself, wings outspread, and gliding to a confident four-point landing below the remaining three.

Not having any of Mike's scruples, the little family, nostrils flaring, openly gawped at him. Ears hot, Mike turned, and trotting, caught up with the other two as they approached what might have been a house made of what looked like more of the compacted couch stuffing he was walking on.

They'd stood waiting outside the door after Shining Armor knocked, muttering. "We're just here to get a few personal things – they don't know the whole situation. Let's keep it that way for now."

"Yep." Big Mac noisily swallowed the last of his lozenge as the door opened and a large older stallion ushered them in, only to quietly stand beside a smaller mare.

With Big Mac bringing up the rear, Shining Armor took the two to the other side of the room, leaving Mike standing alone in the middle of what might have been a living room, free to gawp as much as he liked.

For starters, a Pegasi house was a lot like a human one, only the chairs and tables were lower. Off to one side there were bookshelves and a row of houseplants lined up on a stand by the big picture window that overlooked the ground several thousand feet below - like something his mother would have.

Strangely reassured, he turned to look some more only to jump a little. The mare had come up beside him, nostrils slightly flaring, hooves silent on the thick stuff of the floor, "Hello... Mike? I'm Rainbow Dash's step-mother, Windy. Would you like something to drink?" she asked.

Mike nodded and Windy led him to one of the low couches, "Sit here. I'll be right back." She smiled pleasantly at him over one shoulder as she disappeared into another room, only to return with a bail-handled tray with two wide containers full of dark brown liquid and a small plate of what looked like cookies on it clenched in her teeth.

After putting the tray down on what might have been a coffee table, she joined him on the low couch. After glancing over where the other stallions were talking quietly among themselves, she cleared her throat uncomfortably as she gripped one of the wide containers between her front hooves and with surprising grace, offered it to him. In a panic, Mike stared down at the drink, afraid he'd spill whatever it was all over the furniture if he took it from her with his own huge front hooves but he didn't want to be rude. Somehow sensing this, Windy placed it beside him on the little table before taking the other for herself, "So." she said, taking a long sip of what Mike realized was hot chocolate, adding, "You're Rainbow Dash's _partner_."

If Windy meant wingmate, yeah. Everybody else rotated in and out, but for some reason, they always wound up together – even when he'd spent a few weeks in the George Washington's catapault control pod assisting the officer assigned there until he was cleared to fly instead of being rotated to the next open assignment on a different carrier- no thanks to that tree he'd walked into. She'd flown missions as usual, only without him. Another funny thing was the whole time Mike was in the pod he felt uncomfortable after she launched until her voice came in over the assigned channel. He'd almost relax until she went over the horizon, once again experiencing the same background discomfort he was feeling now until she'd return six hours later at the end of her assigned patrol with another wingmate so that going on patrol with Lt. Dash again after he'd been cleared to fly had been a relief

"Yeah." How much did these… people… know? How much were they allowed to know? Playing it safe, Mike added, "We work together. A lot."

"I see." Windy glanced over to where the three stallions stood, heads together, occasionally shooting glances their way, and then back sidelong at him, a speculative look on her rounded pale blue face. "It's none of my business, but I can see the attraction."

What?

"We aren't—"

Windy gave him an appraising look over one of the little cakes as she put it to her lips, "Have one. I baked them this morning." She nudged the plate towards him with her free hoof.

Ears now all but smoking, Mike picked up a pastry with his teeth directly from the plate, acutely aware that his table manners, if you could call them that, were probably enough to provoke a war here. He'd already tried not sucking down the hot chocolate like a vacuum cleaner where it rested on the table, but had given up, going thirsty when not loudly slurping proved impossible.

"You're a little rough around the edges, even for an _Earth_ Pony. We've never had one in the family before, but things aren't like they used to be…" Windy trailed off, nostrils slightly flaring as her eyes nervously flickered towards his unmarked flank.

 _What?_ Mike stood up clumsily, nearly kicking the table over as he backed away. Windy braced it with one hoof so that its contents didn't go crashing to the floor. _Oh, hell no!_

Acutely aware that other three stallions were now staring at him from across the room, Mike opened his mouth and then abruptly shut it. Windy rose, smiling, "There, I've said too much, it's none of my business how my step-daughter lives. Anyway, you came to get a few things for her, which is very sweet of you." She walked to a doorway at the other end of the living room, pausing to gesture at him, "Follow me. It'll give us something to do while those three discuss State secrets or whatever no good they're up to."

Uncomfortable, Mike joined her, passing what appeared to be an Honor Wall for Lt. Dash's father along the way. He paused, Windy joining him saying, "Bow is very proud of his career as a Wonderbolt – even after he retired five years ago." She nudged him, "Come on, visiting hours will be over soon. Let's get a few things from Rainbow's old room."

Remembering something Lt. Dash said to him at Big Sur after she'd seen the embarrassing photo album of what little there was of his childhood, "You're lucky to have such a small book. My parents documented EVERYTHING – I mean, there are pictures of everything I've done since I was a foal all over the house – every award, every ribbon, every certificate, every trophy - even the ones for showing up with a pulse! I mean, _my filly teeth are on display in a little glass box!_ Dad even gave me an award for best TEETHER – pictures and EVERYTHING!" In spite of this, Mike realized that there was not one picture, not so much as a snapshot on the little mantelpiece of Rainbow Dash in the living room.

Nor were there any on the walls of the hallway they walked down until Windy nudged open the last door at the end.

There were boxes everywhere, stacked on the low bed, on the low desk, on the floor. Puzzled, Mike stepped over one or two as he came into the room with walls painted like an afternoon sky complete with clouds and flying birds.

Windy began rummaging around in the closet, "I'd say have a seat, but there's nowhere to sit, so have a stand!" her voice was flat, "Sorry about the mess, but when we got the news she'd been banished… it was too painful to look at her things so we put it all in here – Bow and I, we thought we'd been supportive, but I guess we weren't supportive enough." Her wings sagged. "Bow still gets upset whenever somebody asks us about her."

Mike looked down at the dresser, which was also low to the ground and noticed dozens of unopened letters stacked atop a large sheet of paper.

Making sure Windy wasn't looking, Mike gently eased the letters aside with a hoof and then stared.

It was a recruiting poster, but instead of humans, there were Ponies in a range of poses wearing vaguely familiar gear and uniforms, and he knew them.

Or at least he knew the two tall ones standing in the back.


	62. Tailhook 35

_There had been a call for volunteers for a new recruiting poster and Rainbow Dash had volunteered. She'd tried to get Mike to do it with her, but not liking having his picture taken and thinking it was all a stupid waste of time even if they were getting paid for it, he'd given her an uncompromising "No."_

 _"Your loss then." She'd said, and then gone ahead and done the photo shoot anyway._

 _Having never seen such a thing done, he'd tagged along, only to get dragged into the project anyway because the photographer needed someone to balance out the back row in the group shot._

 _No. No. NO! Never. Nope. Not on your life… she'd given him "that look" and he'd shut up, got his gear out of the back of the truck in the BX parking lot, and grumbling the whole time, suited up with her help, sweltering in the back row like a big lump in full flight gear, helmet under one arm with Lt. Dash in full dress whites beside him and a bunch of shorter people in an assortment of uniforms in front of him._

 _The shoot continued, the photographer ordering them all to scrunch in closer – and she'd scooched over, still smiling for the camera as if she'd done this before._

 _"No. No. NO! It's all wrong! You." The photographer had waved at Mike, "Earth to Lt. Schmidt. Yeah, you, the big guy in the back – would it hurt you for once in your life to smile for the camera?"_

 _Hating the attention, Mike instantly switched from his usual carefully blank expression to a glower._

 _"No, not frown. SMILE – we want people to JOIN the Navy, not FLEE to the Army!"_

 _Ears burning, Mike attempted something vaguely friendly.  
_

 _Beside him Rainbow Dash stood radiant, making his own stupid predicament all the worse._

 _"Oh for criss— We're on a deadline here, people. Can't you at least FAKE it?" R_ _unning a hand over his face, t_ _he photographer stepped out from behind the camera, "I mean, if you'd at least TRY to look like you enjoy being in the Navy I can get the shot and we can all go home and drink beer."_

 _Acutely aware that everyone else was getting restless, Mike tried again, only the lights were suddenly too bright and he could feel individual drops of sweat roll down his back between his shoulder blades under his flight suit as his knees locked up._

 _"Hurry it up, Schmidt, my teeth are drying out!" Muttered the smiling nurse in scrubs posed in front of him._

 _And then Lt. Dash slid an arm around his waist, giving him a little squeeze against her side in a way that it wouldn't show in the final picture._

 _It wasn't much, just a gentle pulling of him into her. Mike suddenly felt that this was no big deal, it was like taking off, like breathing, like freefall, and he felt his face open up for the photographer, who'd looked up from facepalming and caught Mike's expression just in time to get the picture he'd wanted._

And here it was, gathering dust in a strange place, with creatures he vaguely recognized as himself and Lt. Dash, smiling back at him from under a stack of unopened letters.

"That's a very nice picture of you two." Windy smiled up at him, "I hope you sent your mother one."

"Yeah," Mike said as they left Lt. Dash's old room.

Windy looked up at him once more as they walked back to the living room together, "Sorry, I didn't find anything she might need. Say... hello... to her... for us... will you?"


	63. Tailhook 36

The trip from Cloudsdale to what he'd been told was Canterlot, a small, well-lit city clinging to the side of a mountain beneath an elaborate palace that Disney would have envied, had been as rough as the trip to Cloudsdale, only with the added misery of it being in the dark so Mike couldn't anticipate Pinkie's next erratic move and brace for it even as his discomfort at not knowing exactly where Lt. Dash was, increased.

So, Mike settled for lying on his side with his eyes closed, badly needing a cigarette, a cigar, a chew; anything to distract him from the traumatic carnival ride he'd consented to get back on even though he'd known better.

 _He'd started at 13, copping a smoke here, a smoke there, until he got busted at 15 by his mother. Lighting up one-handed as she wheeled into the kitchen, she'd caught him hunched over a lit stove burner because he'd lost his lighter._

 _She'd just about blew her stack._

 _Up to a pack a day, Mike hollered back: if she goddam could, why couldn't he?_

 _They'd spent the next hour or so trading verbal jabs over fried egg, bacon, and coffee until she firmly ground her own smoke out in the big glass ashtray that dominated the kitchen table saying levelly, "All right, puff away all you like, love-of-my-life, but your father smokes three packs a day."_

 _Wordlessly meeting his mother's eyes, Mike ground out the butt he'd just lit off the one he'd just defiantly sucked down to the filter in front of her, resignedly slapping his half-empty pack of unfiltered Marlboros across her open palm._

 _"Mike, I'll cut you a deal. If you quit, I quit." Sighing, she'd dropped her supply as well as his down the garbage disposal._

 _The disposal, for once working the way it was supposed to, loudly masticated the offending coffin nails in the loud silence of the cramped, bacon-smelling trailer kitchen._

 _It had been a long hot bitchy summer for both of them._

 _That was when Mike started chewing – which kept the cravings for cancer sticks down, the nicotine leaching into his system from the shredded tobacco packed between his cheek and gum soothing him whenever he'd had a rough time at school or at one or more of the odd jobs he held all over town even though he wasn't legally old enough to work._

 _A chaw here._

 _A chaw there— clandestine wads in one cheek or another until he got caught chewing in college and was jeered at for being a typical backwoods white trash hick by his pre-med roommate who came from a gated community in K.C - who then laughingly showed him a picture of some poor bastard who'd had half his face eaten off by cancer. Terrified, he'd quit— another long, bitchy summer, only this time on a threshing crew that took him nearly to Canada and back, heavy smokers and chewers, every damned last one of 'em._

 _Still struggling to lose his accent, Mike used part of that summer's pay to get his teeth bleached the week before Fall classes started – only white trash had brown teeth and Mike was damned if he'd let anybody mistake him for that.  
_

 _Problem was, after years of going cold turkey, Mike resumed chewing on the sly after the camping trip to Big Sur – the returning chronic nightmares weren't so bad when he did. Too self-conscious to use the designated areas, Skoal was easier to conceal aboard ship than cigarettes. Anyway, after such a long break, smoking left Mike's lungs feeling like they'd been run through a walnut huller and he didn't like the smell of his own breath in his face mask. He'd almost given himself away when Rainbow Dash noticed him leaning mid-chew against a railing in one the bays below the main deck after PT and had jogged over to talk to him about the previous night's patrol. Embarrassed that she'd_ _almost caught_ _him indulging in such a filthy white trash habit, Mike considered swallowing the entire wad to hide his disgusting relapse before she could guess what he was up to. Luckily for his stomach,_ _she'd_ _been distracted by a helicopter coming in for a landing on the deck above them, which allowed him to gob the entire filthy mess over the side unnoticed.  
_

 _Anyway, it could have been worse; it could have been booze like his old man. So he'd quit… sort of - but not before getting reprimanded like some dumbass newbie on his first shipping out by a Deck Boss who'd seen the whole thing and the long brown stain on the hull._

 _Mike got caught again in another off limits area, this time by some Purple Shirt, in the middle of spitting it out into a cup and hiding it in the trash._

 _Another reprimand._

 _And another – Mike's bunkmate, a guy who ate live oysters by the dozen without gagging, complaining about finding his gross wads in the wastebasket._

 _Smarting, Mike ordered himself to stop. That the nightmares weren't so bad - he'd just have to man up and ride them out. Eventually they'd go away, like they had when he was a kid after the accident that put his mother in a wheelchair and dad moved out to live with his girlfriend and Mike's new baby half-sister._

 _That's it. Cold turkey, you got that BOY?_

 _Mike made it a week, simmering just below the surface, nightmares worsening, waking up bathed in sweat, the memory of the sting of an extension cord against the back of his legs, his dad yelling at him that he should have been aborted, echoing in his ears._

 _The day it all got shot to shit Mike snarled at a line server in Dirty Shirt for putting bacon and not sausage on his tray so that everybody stared at him. Then he'd snapped at Lt. Dash over how much coffee she'd already had even as he downed his fifth, or was it a sixth? He'd lost count, and didn't care as he'd grabbed his tray and moved to another table only to fall asleep during the morning briefing so that Rainbow'd had to wake him up – followed by a verbal warning from the squadron leader after everyone else had left, that if he didn't straighten up and cut it out—_

"I'm sorry, but Lt. Dash isn't seeing visitors now."


	64. Tailhook 37

Mike blinked, chain of thought snapped, "What do you mean she doesn't want visitors?" Nervously he shook his head, the unpleasantly dislocated feeling lurking in the back of his head stepping forward at this news, "We came all the way from… wherever it was to see her."

The nurse, well, the little blue and white unicorn had a nurse's cap on, so she must be one, met Mike's eyes disapprovingly over her thick glasses. "And you are?" She looked at his bare rump.

Shining Armor smoothly interjected, "Mike, or Michael."

"Yup." Big Mac added. Mike turned and stared. He remembered the big red stallion from his last inadvertent visit to Equestria and was still debating if Big Mac was either developmentally challenged or just didn't feel like talking.

"I see." She added, "Rainbow Dash has informed me that she doesn't want to see anyone right now." She looked down at the clipboard, adding, "Visiting hours begin at eight tomorrow morning. She may have visitors after physical therapy."

"Physical therapy…? And why the hell's a guard at the door?" Mike looked down the hallway. An official-looking unicorn, again, white with a dark blue mane and tail and what looked suspiciously like a Greek helmet on his or her head stood at attention outside.

"I'm not at liberty to say." The nurse bustled away.

"She broke a ban – the Palace has placed her under arrest until they decide what to do about her." Shining Armor said.

"She broke a what?" Mike cocked his head.

"Not so loud!"

"Yup."

"Ban? What ban?"

Shining Armor looked at him incredulously, "I thought you knew." He steered Mike to a little lounge at the end of the hall of the small private hospital that opened onto a courtyard and faced him.

"Knew what?" This time Mike remembered to keep his voice down.

"Do you recall the last time you came here?"

"I've tried to forget this backwater Cloud Cuckooland every damned day of my life."

Shining Armor almost, but not quite, looked insulted, "Rainbow Dash broke several laws bringing you here the first time. For that, the Palace banished her to your world permanently."

"She never told me." Mike looked down at his big hooves, not quite sure what to think of any of this. "Oh God, does that mean that I…?"

"No, you didn't commit any crime coming here – but my sister is under house arrest until the Palace knows exactly what happened."

Mike met Shining Armor's eyes, "That explains the debriefing."

Shining Armor nodded. "Thank you for being as forthcoming as you were during the interview in the guardroom. I would cover this personally but as Princess Cadence's husband, Twilight Sparkle's older brother, and head of the Canterlot Royal Guard, the conflict of interest is too much."

Suddenly realizing that he was talking to somebody who could easily put him and Rainbow Dash away in some dark cellar for good and nobody would question it, Mike stepped back, bobbed tail swishing nervously.

"Don't worry, it's routine. You should have seen what happened when my daughter wandered off during a Filly Scout outing – talk about a national emergency!" Shining Armor snorted. Mike stared, puzzled by this, until he realized that the blue and white unicorn with a shield on his rump was laughing. "We had the entire Palace Guard combing the woods for hours. We were preparing to contact three different embassies, only to find she'd got tired and flew home when the troop leader wasn't looking – Cadence found her at home in asleep on our bed hugging her Whammy!"

"Yep." added Big Mac as he pushed past them into the courtyard and turned his broad flank to them.

Remembering the picture Shining Armor had shown him of his family earlier, Mike cautiously ventured, "Your wife and daughter are like Twilight, aren't they? Where's _your_ wings?"

"Alicorns are made, not born." Was the shorter stallion's serene reply as he watched the full moon rise over the encircling roofline, slowly illuminating the central courtyard which overflowed with night-blooming flowers. "We do not discuss it, though I fathered one. That is all you need to know." Despite the careful neutrality of Shining Armor's reply, Mike thought he detected a quiet smugness in the stallion's voice.

Having the feeling that he might be asking a question that could get him in big trouble as he tried to piece together the mess he'd landed in, Mike added, "Which makes them royalty, and you…?"

" _Somewhat_ royal. I married into the inner circle after becoming head of the Palace guard." Shining Armor's reply was placid. "There is no nepotism involved, if that's what you were thinking. I rose through the ranks on my own merit."

"Which makes Rainbow?" Frankly all Mike could remember of Lt. Dash's other form was little more than a polychrome blur with blue wings, but no horn. Still he'd gone out of his way to forget that, but he could be wrong. There could be a horn involved— only he'd been to busy trying to hold onto his sanity to notice the first time around.

"A royal favorite, with duties of her own until she pushed too far."

"So this is a State matter." Uncomfortably Mike shifted his back hooves, hearing coming and going as it had been for the last several hours.

"Didn't you discuss any of this with Lt. Dash on the other side of the mirror?" Annoyed, Shining Armor turned and faced Mike. "She should have briefed you on the status of her exile after all mirrors were sealed to her. It was her responsibility."

"What?" Mike looked down his nose incredulously at the shorter stallion.

"Captain, excuse me, but Doctor Caduceus has informed me that will see "Michael" in examination room three, second door on the left." The little nurse with the matching red crosses on her rump stepped between them, thick glasses glinting as she consulted the clipboard hovering beside her. Glancing at Mike's flank, she added. "As he's a minor and you've taken temporary custody, you'll—"

"I'm an adult and it was only a loud noise." Sweating as he rapidly sidled away, ears flattened backwards, Mike said, "My hearing is coming back. There's nothing wrong with me!"

Ignoring Mike, the nurse looked at Shining Armor, "Captain?"

"There was blood." Shining Armor stated, adding, "Lt. Red Rood, after the examination, requisition a clean, unmarked shirt for him from Supply. The last thing right I need right now is someone getting the wrong idea."

"What about my shirt? And I'm anything but a minor!" Mike looked down at the pale blue short-sleeved garment that had been returned to him at Twilight Sparkle's palace along with a weird full body suit with yellow piping, dark blue instead of his issue OD green flight suit, shirt and shorts. The blue suit was impossible to get into without hands. Being in no mood to look like Captain Thunderpants or whatever, he'd left it behind. The insignia had been roughly where they had been on his original shirt, though his name tag was now peculiarly blank.

Still, except for two large symmetrical holes that looked like they belonged there in the back, it sure beat going around half-ass naked – even if his junk had somehow pulled into his body like a dolphin's, making pants optional. Using his teeth, Mike had wrestled the uncooperative garment over his head– going around in circles until he awkwardly stood up on his back legs with front legs raised, letting gravity end the struggle before toppling rearwards, taking the last unbroken piece of furniture in the room, a bedside table with a lamp on it, with him so that he landed heavily on his back but dressed among the splinters and shards

"That's an order, _Lieutenant_."

"I can't pay." Mike's wallet had been replaced by a bag full of random-looking coins that he had no idea of the worth of that he now wore by the drawstring around his neck for lack of pockets. As to his ID and dog tags, they were alarmingly blank and the wrong shape.

"This a Guard hospital. You're in Guard custody. You will be taken care of." Shining Armor watched the nurse firmly herd his protesting 250-pound problem into the examination room, adding, "Lt. Red Rood, see to it that he changes his shirt after the examination." He nodded at Big Mac, who had returned from the courtyard, indicating that the big stallion stand by the door.

Frowning, Shining Armor paused on his way into the examination room, listening to Mike argue with Dr. Caduceus as the nurse undressed him. Rainbow Dash's bodyguard was NOT what he'd come to expect from reading her letters to his sister. Instead of the calm, professional background presence she'd described, Mike was more like a kettle about to boil over, radiating defiant truculence in almost palpable waves.

The Captain of the Royal Guard uneasily shook his mane once more and pushed through the door into the little room. Irrational as it seemed, the Shining Ones had their reasons, and it wasn't his place to question their decisions, however incomprehensible.


	65. Tailhook 38

Wing held at an awkward angle by the dressing on the wound she'd somehow got on her way through Epona's Mirror, Rainbow Dash shifted on the low hospital bed trying to get comfortable as she listened to what was going on outside in the hall.

The injury was no big deal – she'd done worse to herself when she was a filly flying too close under the treetops on a family outing because her parents had warned her not to, catching a wing on a broken branch so that she'd tumbled to the ground, scaring them half to death, bawling her eyes out not because it hurt but because they had been right after all.

Testing. Testing. Always testing. Always pushing, never knowing when to stop – only this time she hadn't been testing, hadn't gone out of her way to prove herself right and everyone else wrong: this time she'd panicked; seriously injuring someone in her loss of control.

It wasn't a scrape, it wasn't a bump, it wasn't bruised feelings or jealousy this time, but the rainboom.

Rainbow Dash hadn't even known she could do it on the other side of the mirror, not in her wingless form – she'd seen Mike go down, she'd seen the Syrian MIG-21s line up and drop in for a strafe…

…out of missiles, she'd pushed her own Hornet to it's limits, sighting in, dropping in behind the two other aircraft as they rapidly approached where she'd seen Mike's 'chute fluttering and…

BOOM.

That was it.

BOOM.

The MIG-21s ruptured into fireballs – the Syrians didn't even get a chance to punch out.

BOOM.

Her own Hornet's controls had gone dead, all readouts, all gauges, shattered – not even alarms, just dead silence in the cockpit as she'd punched out of the wildly yawing aircraft, the explosive force of the ejector seat's rockets slamming her into the sky as the canopy fell away… of blacking out.

BOOM.

…of coming to high over the ground, shoulders aching, looking down, of being relieved to see Mike looking up at her, one arm supporting her as he cut the lines holding her suspended, his face covered in sweat and dirt…

BOOM.

…of being so happy, so relieved that he was all right, that her wings had given her away…

…of seeing dried blood on the sides of his neck…

…of saying things to him…of getting no response …of seeing Twilight Sparkle steer him …of the terror in his eyes…

BOOM.

…and knowing that she was to blame.


	66. Tailhook 39

Mike found himself wandering the streets of the little city spread beneath the palace like a high-end jeweler's display.

Though well past sundown, there was nightlife here, but it went on around him as if Mike didn't exist.

Nothing new there: Dr. Caduceus ignored most of what he said, speaking to Shining Armor instead. When he finally addressed Mike, it was as if Mike were 6, exclaiming that he was extremely large for his age – _"I'm 26, and fully capable of dealing with this myself!"_ Mike exploded.

The elderly unicorn with the stethoscope around his neck had stepped back, eyes flickering from Mike's bare flank to Shining Armor and back. He then cleared his throat, "Well then… some of us are late bloomers. Nothing wrong… with that." He became brisk, "I am told there may have been an injury to your ears – hold still, let me look – is there any pain?"

 _Not as bad as a few days ago._

"I am told there was a loud noise."

 _And a rainbow flash – I found myself lying on the ground, my ears bleeding, but I'm much better now._ "I'm all right. Or, I would be if you'd just leave me alone and let me see my wingmate."

"Though the drums appear completely ruptured, there are other tests I'd like to run to be certain— Nurse Red Rood, schedule this youngster for further testing tomorrow morning after five o'clock. Tonight I'll do an irrigation under local to ascertain the damage and then pack them with gauze – there's not really all that much we can do at this point."

 _I can hear you just fine. Leave me alone._

"Meanwhile, I need to confirm something…" Gesturing with his horn, Dr. Caduceus removed the medallion Twilight Sparkle had dropped around his neck.

 _Leave me alone._

The room went silent. Dropping the medallion on a nearby counter, Dr. Caduceus said something to Mike, lips moving in total silence.

His hearing hadn't come back.

Numbly Mike watched Shining Armor and the doctor go to the other side of the room, lips moving soundlessly, shaking their heads as the little nurse bustled around him setting out strange equipment.

 _It's over._

If he ever managed to get out of this candy-colored loony bin and back home, where would he go? He'd be discharged, and that would be the end of all his hard work – so long, farewell, it was real...

 _...and while you're at it, don't let the screen door hit you on the ass on the way out, dude._

Looking back at Mike, the doctor and Shining Armor left him alone in the examination room, taking the nurse with them. In the silence of his head Mike somehow managed to flip the medallion over his head using gravity and his teeth after pulling his shirt back on to prove to himself that he wasn't the animal he looked like and walked out the back door, the growing, nagging discomfort of not knowing if Rainbow Dash was really all right nipping insistantly at his heels.

In the flickering light of a gaily-decorated street lamp, a group of unicorn mares were admiring what looked like dresses in a shop window. They turned, openly eyeing him as he walked past, murmuring and giggling among themselves, "Oh my hooves and garters, who's _that?"_ "He's _very_ handsome, isn't he?" "Is he taken? If not, dibsies!"

Then one of them squealed loudly, "He's only an EARTH pony! Why bother with a BLANK FLANK even if he's good looking?" In the staring silence she added, "All you'd GET from HIM would be a barn with a DIRT floor, HORNLESS foals, and nonstop farm CHORES!" She turned back to the shop window, adding dismissively, "Anyway, he smells bad!"

Ears burning, Mike trotted past. Maybe there were advantages to being deaf.

With no idea where he was going, Mike continued down the meandering, narrow street, doing his best to ignore comments about his height, personal scent, and general blankness until he passed some sort of nightclub, music spilling out of the doorway. Across from it was a cart selling apples. Mike's stomach rumbled – he'd been too airsick to eat earlier – but he plodded past, not knowing value of the coins that weighed down the bag around his neck beside the one Mr. Shy had given him a few months back.

"Hey! Hey!" Mike looked up, stopped and turned. A tangerine-colored pony, disproportionately small wings a blur so that the scooter she stood on with her back legs while steering with her front, wove in and out of the crowd in the streets like a dragonfly above a pond before she came to a rolling halt beside him, "It's Mike, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Mike started walking again. She buzzed her wings, scooter easily pacing him.

"It's me, Scootaloo!" She said, giving him a sudden, brief squeeze across the back of the neck between her chin and chest, before pulling back and looking up at him, "Don't you remember me?"

"Big Sur?" It was weird, though in a different shape, he recognized her as the pretty teenager in the racing wheelchair that had been part of the gang of girls who'd come to watch his and Rainbow Dash's graduation a few months ago.

"Yeah, I had a great time! Didn't you?" She grinned, flipping her magenta mane out of her eyes, "Thanks for helping me up all those stairs – couldn't have made it without you!" Good grief, was the kid blushing?

"Yeah." Blush aside and in no mood to talk, Mike continued his slog through the evening hoof traffic, wishing this kid would leave him the hell alone but also glad for the company.

"Are you here to see Rainbow Dash? I didn't even know she was back until this afternoon. Shining Armor told me - he had them let me in to see her less than an hour ago. It was great, I haven't seen her for like for-everrrrrr!"

What? Raising his head, Mike stopped in his tracks.

"Her wing'll be all right, but she wouldn't tell me how it happened – says it's a Palace secret and she'd have to kill me if she told- oh wellllllllll!" Scootaloo blithely buzzed ahead, swooping in a graceful arc around a group of strolling unicorn mares in elaborate drapes and body jewelry so that she ended up back in front of Mike in a tight, lazy circle, one back hoof out for balance as she matched his speed. "She asked me to get her some apple turnovers from this cafe she and Rarity like, used to hang out at when Rarity was apprenticed to one of the _haute coture_ dressmakers – you know, the one who does business with Canterlot? Anyway, if we hurry—"

Mike interrupted, "You've seen her?"

"Yeah, not so loud! Like everypony's staring! Like, didn't _you_?" Scootaloo spiraled around him, scooter bumping on the slightly rounded cobbles. "I mean, you're her…"

"No." Frowning, Mike paused, asking, "Is she all right?"

"Miiiiiiike! Are you even listening? She's got stitches in one wing. I don't know _why_ she's staying in the hospital for something as little as that!" Scootaloo suddenly zipped away towards a shop with tables out front half a block up. Propping her scooter against an empty table, she called over one shoulder, "Hurry up, slowpoke! They just took a tray out of the oven – that's when they're the BEST!"

Mike forced his hooves to move forward. If Rainbow Dash would see this kid, then why not him?


	67. Tailhook 40

"….and then I said…"

Trying to block out Rarity as he more or less "sat" between the fashionably decorated unicorn mare and Scootaloo at one of the tables in front of the patisserie, Mike attempted to eat a pastry without drawing attention to himself. While ordering turnovers, Scootaloo had heard his stomach rumble (Hell, so had the rest of the customers, and the fussy-looking little unicorn stallion behind the counter had smirked), and insisted they both have something to eat before going back to the clinic.

Rarity, if that's what her name was, seeing them from the street, sashayed over and parked it at their table.

Seems she too had seen Rainbow Dash and had decided on her own to get his wingmate pastries from this shop, and yes, dahling, it was fate, pure fate, blah blah blah…

"…and then she said…"

Blah blah blah…

Mike attempted to pick the pastry up with his front hooves as everyone else seemed to do effortlessly when bites weren't simply rising from their plates and landing their mouths, only to drop it on the table where it stickily broke in half. Hungry and disgusted with everything, Mike picked up the damaged dainty between his teeth, threw his head back, opened wide, and let gravity do it's thing.

"Oh, realllllllyyyyy, dahling. _Must_ you?" Staring with one arched brow, Rarity paused, before resuming her ramble between drifting bites as if if Mike's undeniable assault on table manners had never happened. Out of the corner of one eye as he loudly masticated, Mike noticed Scootaloo blush and look away.

Ears hot, Mike hastily swallowed his _faux pas_ , badly wanting the coffee in a broad cup in front of him, but leaving it untouched out of sheer mortification - nobody else was slurping it up like a... well, a horse.

"…anyway, daaaahhhh-ling, I told our filly tonight that if she wasn't interested, _I was._ Mark or no mark, I just _know_ we'd look good together once we clean you up!" Lashes fluttering, Rarity leaned into him with a blatantly flirtatious upward glance.

Remembering the unasked for girlfriend he'd somehow acquired by accident during flight training – a townie who by the third date was referring to him as her fiancé and the father of her two sticky toddlers from another relationship while demanding he pay for an engagement ring that cost more than his truck and a boob job. It took everything Mike had not to kick over the table and go clattering up the street into the nearby countryside, never to return, only to be distracted by a coughing fit, thanks to a crumb going down the wrong way, Scootaloo holding the much-desired cup of coffee to his mouth once the coughing subsided.

Eyes watering, Mike resolved that if there was going to be any more eating, it would be in private no matter how hungry he was.

Blah blah blah… did this mare ever shut up about clothing and ponies he'd never met in his life? Mike looked down at a giggling Scootaloo, who shrugged, before whispering in his ear, "Don't worry. She's really much nicer than she seems. She just takes a bit of getting used to, is all!"

At least the beautifully styled unicorn's blather drowned out the frank but rude remarks about his appearance from the surrounding tables. Head aching, Mike leaned forward and slipped the medallion that was his auditory link to the world over his ears and onto the table, nudging it with a hoof to the far end.

Peace at last!

 _Zephyr trundled through the kitchen doorway of the café while pushing the bussing cart into the outdoor dining area. He'd managed to get this demeaning job through a friend of a friend of a friend after his father had given him a final ultimatum while kicking him out of his comfortable basement nest for good along with the strongly worded request that his only son go find work on one of Equestria's frontiers and not come back until a.) his attitude had improved, and b.) he'd learned to respect the rights of others._

 _What attitude? As for respect, Zephyr considered it right and proper that he only gave as much as they deserved._

 _Take for instance, the tall nobody seated at the table between two of Dashie's best friends, towering over the two of them like he was some sort of prince - and an EARTH pony at that. Not so much as a pinfeather and the poser was being fawned over by one of the prettiest fillies in Canterlot and that little half-winged gimp that obviously Dashie let hang around out of pity._

 _Sweet Celestia, the little crip couldn't even rise a foot off the ground with her puny wings! So what if Zephyr's— already a big dude, and now an even bigger one from eating every leftover he encountered while bussing tables when he wasn't pilfering the stock because he needed to keep up his strength— wings couldn't even raise him the height of a sat upon dandelion? Worse, the dude obviously had bits he didn't deserve, when Zephyr'd had to pawn his sterling silver ear gauges and matching nose ring to pay rent for the hole in the wall apartment because the prima donnas who already lived there demanded cash up front – the cranky old stallion had confiscated the gold set to pay off the debts of the beauty salon the antiquated bore claimed Zephyr had mismanaged into bankruptcy. Again, it wasn't his fault if potential customers simply didn't understand his unique approach to high fashion!_

 _So here he was, Zephyr, the finest, most innovative mane and tail stylists in Equestria, who should be dictating fashion to the elite, eating leftovers from ponies who didn't even deserve to come into his now defunct shop while some gold-colored tasteless blank flank nobody who'd left his appearance unfashionably natural lived it up with bits and status he obviously didn't deserve!_

 _Tall? Golden (How tacky!)? Blank flank? Wait a moment... Zephyr squinted, was that? Oh my, it WAS! Somehow the blank flank loser that had stolen his one and only Dashie had come through the mirror and... this was too good to be true!_

 _Belly brushing the pavement, a heavily sweating Zephyr abandoned the bussing cart and waddled toward the constable standing in the nearby intersection directing traffic. Aside from knowing that everyone should defer to him because he was the son of a Wonderbolt, Zephyr had made it a point not to know very much about the military because it was for talentless losers who couldn't get work anywhere else and had to settle for whatever they could get. However, he did know that the wingless jerk who'd humiliated him on the other side of the mirror shouldn't be wearing a shirt and insignia he had no right to wear – honestly, where were his wings?_

 _Zephyr paused mid lumber, recalling the humiliating whack on the head with a loaded rubber chicken that Mike had given him in front of Dashie on the other side of the mirror. That plus informing the constable that Mike was a dangerous lunatic while he was at it would be just more sweet, sweet icing on the turnover, as far as Zephyr was concerned._


	68. Tailhook 41

Twilight Sparkle walked out of Rainbow Dash's room at the Guard clinic and into the night between worlds, knowing she was in trouble.

"Twilight Sparkle, for the Princess of Friendship, you've been showing remarkably little friendship as of late." Came a gentle rebuke out of the darkness.

"That doesn't make any sense." was all that she could think of saying. Well, it _didn't!_

"Come, walk with me a while." Celestia's voice surrounded her like a warm blanket on a cold day.

The two alicorns, one tall, one growing taller, walked along the Milky Way, or as they knew it, Epona's Meadow.

After a cosmic eon, thinking of the damage back home, Twilight Sparkle said in an aggrieved tone, "He tore up my house, he smells like a griffon – and _oh_ , all those refugees…. I mean, what with my duties as Princess of Friendship, I don't have time to deal with any of the mess _he_ created!"

"You mean, the mess _both_ of you created? It was to save Rainbow Dash that he did what he did." Celestia chuckled, "You were the one who rode him to the nearest door – which we will discuss later. But would you really have left them all to die knowing you could do something?" The Princess of the Sun halted somewhere near the Dog Star, or Sombra's Eye, turning back to study her protégée, head cocked, horn glittering. "Though our neighbors to the East speak the same language as the mares who came through with Mike and Rainbow Dash, they refuse to take them in for their own reasons. But has that caused our dear Spike to turn his back on them? On any of the other pathetic inconveniences who came with them who merely want to live?"

Ashamed, Twilight Sparkle turned her head away, the light of Sombra's Eye outlining her horn, "No. Not really. Spike's been trying to teach them our language, our ways so if they have to stay in Equestria they won't become an unwelcome burden. He's convinced Cranky Doodle and his wife to take the donkey in even if she's unpleasant. The sheepdog, his sheep, and the goats have been adopted by Applejack to help keep the weeds in the orchards under control. That... was Spike's doing... too." She glanced at her ruler from the corner of her eye, adding in a very small voice. "Actually, I've had to do very little… oh all right, yes. I'm jealous! But only a little."

 _"And?"_

"Before _he_ came along, _she_ always had time for me."

"How do you know it's _that_ way between them?"

"He's all she ever writes about." Twilight Sparkle said in a very small voice. "How kind he is. How much fun they have." She crossed her eyes, making a face, "How good looking he is, and worse: what a good flier he is –I mean, _he doesn't even have wings!"_

"So I've read." Amusement rippled through the Princess of the Sun's voice like sunlight on water, "Is there anything else you're not telling me?"

A long silence, a white hole erupted, a black hole collapsed, "He let her get hurt. He wasn't supposed to do that."

"Really?" Celestia began to stride along Epona's Meadow, forcing the much shorter Twilight Sparkle to trot to catch up. "So this was all his fault?"

"Obviously!" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, "I mean, you should see the inside of his head, it's a MESS!" Ooops, she hadn't meant to say that. The alicorn clapped a hoof over her mouth.

"And was it fun controlling another being?" Celestia continued her pace.

Yes it was. The power of making Mike do her bidding, it had been so easy… she would have to try it again… it felt so… GOOD!

Oh dear.

Twilight Sparkle slumped to her haunches, head down, "No. Not really. It felt like the time when I was a little filly and fell through the ice on the pond near our house. Shining Armor had to pull me out but not before I stirred up all sorts of stinky muck from the bottom. It took a lot of soap and hot water before the smell of rotting leaves and worse came off– how could anybody do that to their own foal?"

"It happens here, too. I can't be everywhere." Came Celestia's terse reply as she turned and stood before her pupil. "What did you see?"

"That inside his head he sounds like Applejack. Only unlike Applejack, he's ashamed of it because he thinks people will think he's stupid. So he hides it by saying as little as he can."

"Didn't you think Applejack was like that at first? Stupid? Slow?"

Face hot, Twilight Sparkle said in a very, very small voice, "Ummmm, yes."

"Did she prove you wrong, the same way Pinkie Pie proved to you that for all her silliness that she was wiser than you thought?"

Twilight Sparkle nodded uncomfortably. "Yes."

"What else did you see ?" Celestia eased down beside Twilight Sparkle, draping a wing that smelled of honeysuckle and fresh hay over her.

"That he's had to work hard for everything he has. That he never feels he's good enough so he works harder and harder until he has it but even then he's still hiding under the bed sucking his thumb while his sire calls him worthless." This came out in a rush, leaving Twilight Sparkle ashamed for betraying someone she now blackly despised even as the backs of her legs stung from a beating she'd never received. She whispered. adding, "And that he blames himself for all of this because he should have been paying closer attention to the machine that gives him wings and that he deserves to lose everything because obviously he didn't try hard enough!"

There was a long silence as a galaxy blossomed around them.

" _And_ is it all of this his fault?"

"I- I don't know. It just happened. And, and he did what he could to fix things, even if it meant me taking him over – which I don't think he understood what it meant when I agreed to guide him to the nearest portal." Twilight Sparkle leaned against her mentor, "Maybe that's why he was so frightened and tore up my house when he woke up on our side."

Celestia's voice was serene, but firm, "Riding others is forbidden for a reason. Should a similar situation ever arise, find another way out."

"Yes. My lady." Twilight Sparkled whispered. "But he's huge, a, a a trained killer of others. Still, he was unaccountably kind to Scootaloo when she went to the other side of the mirror without anybody asking - it's all the filly can talk about!"

"Rather like Rarity – she's very pretty, and all she can think of is fashion and makeup. I remember you thinking she was brainlessly silly and vain, cruel even. Then she'd turn around and use her talents to benefit someone without anyone knowing it while expecting nothing in return. Am I right?"

Twilight nodded into the velvety shoulder of the Solar Princess. "But he's so big and violent – how can Rainbow Dash stand him?"

"Even Big Mac can be pushed into actions he'll regret later, gentle as he is. If I recall, you said pretty much the same of Rainbow Dash; that she was also pushy and arrogant. For all his faults, Mike has changed her."

"But, I don't like it, any of it!" Twilight Sparkle got to her hooves hastily, "I don't like what he's done to her – she wasn't herself, she was… sad. When we talked, it was all about him!"

"Well, then," Celestia looked up at her, mane a pale nimbus, long delicate face amused, "Why did you encourage it?"


	69. Tailhook 42

Oh God, so the deafness he'd told himself over and over since waking up in this crazy place was temporary, wasn't.

Chin on the table, eyes closed, Mike leaned his forehead against his hooves as Rarity continued blathering away to his left while Scootaloo toyed with the remains of a turnover in the flat, hard silence of his unresponsive ears. What was he going to do now thanks to him ignoring the irregularity he'd felt/heard in his Hornet's twin engines three days ago on takeoff but in his fatigue didn't report?

Because of his unbelievable stupidity, he'd not only caused the destruction of two multi-million dollar aircraft but risked someone else's life, nearly getting them both killed, before dragging them into this fucking slow-motion nightmare.

Shit.

Shit.

 _Shit!_

Not only that, in a matter of seconds he'd flushed years of training and effort down the crapper over the Syrian desert— years spent digging himself and then his mother out of rural poverty in the Bootheel and into a life that didn't involve lifting heavy objects off of some assembly line somewhere between layoffs until his back betrayed him into Percocet addiction and monthly disability checks, being a night shift rent-a-cop at some skeezy kiddie entertainment palace that stank of stale pizza grease and pee, or having to get up at three a.m. to slide his lubed up arm down some cow's vagina to grope for a calf that had got itself turned around in the birth canal, up to his ankles in shit between part-time roofing and construction jobs.

That's it.

So long.

Farewell.

It was real. It was fun.

(But it wasn't real fun, _BOY.)_

Here's your walking papers, _BOY,_ and maybe, just maybe, an allotment for you to retrain - after you've lost the house you worked so hard to pay for. After that, maybe they'll hire a deaffie somewhere in some dead end town for a job that involves a broom and cleaning toilets – but that's not our problem, _BOY,_ it's _yours!_

Hey, here's an idea: how's about you go home, back to trailers and broken down trucks and old cars on blocks, and maybe just maybe have an exciting life sitting on the front porch with a fresh, cheap tattoo and a stained wife beater drinking yourself into a blind stupor every afternoon surrounded by six snot-nosed kids with maybe two of them yours while inside the sagging doublewide on the edge of town your sloppy third wife slowly crushes the couch you will never pay off watching _The Young and the Restless_ , an extra large convenience store pizza on her lap, open 2L bottle of Mountain Dew beside her – ain't our problem, _BOY!_

You blew it.

Big time.

Nope, not our problem – we'll just pass your Hornet, your life, on to the next dumbass sucker while you watch. Nothing personal, _BOY,_ that's just the way the cowflop lands in life –on your boots, splattering hot and wet up your legs right after you just showered and changed into clean jeans – you only have yourself to blame.

C-ya!

As for Lt. Dash, despite all the suspensions and disciplinary actions in her past and their initial rocky start in flight school, she'd _finally_ been promoted from J.G. to full Lieutenant so they were more or less equals… Her asking him to help her eat that nasty pizza with her on the old pier back in Miramar before this clusterfuck started… she wouldn't have done that if she wasn't interested, would she? Aggravating as she could be and wary as Mike was of getting involved with anybody after watching his own parent's teen marriage self-destruct with him trapped in the middle as a child, only an idiot would turn _that_ down… if they were discreet… but now? You've got to be joking, dude - even if he managed to convince her to accept his apology for what his carelessness had cost them both, women of Dash's caliber wouldn't want a… maybe it was just as well she was refusing to see him – she was being well-cared for by her own people… she didn't need him… never would… huh?

Badly in need of a cigarette, a dip, no, beer and lots of it, Mike felt something hard hit the table in front of him. Looking up, he found himself staring into the face of what was clearly a cop. He glanced to either side, Rarity and the kid were gone and the ponies that had been at the surrounding tables were staring at him from a safe distance in a silent clatter of falling dishes and tipped over bistro tables.

A cop. Great. Now what?

Rotating his eyes forward so that the homely unicorn standing in front of where he sat went 3-D, Mike met the… man's? Stallion's? eyes before dropping to his moving lips.

Mike squinted, thinking fast. Had they sat there too long? Was he somehow parked in front of a fire hydrant or the local equivalent? Jaywalking? What? Impatiently Mike gestured at his ears, shaking his head.

Stepping back slightly, the pop-eyed cop frowned, saying something, overlarge teeth suddenly bared, one back hoof abruptly stamping with the added flourish of an aggressive tail swish.

Remembering the medallion he'd taken off, Mike moved a hoof towards the flat metal disk and it's chain, intending to pull it toward him so that he could hear enough to comply.

Now sweating, the seedy looking cop abruptly put a hoof down on the disk, sliding it back towards himself, and got in Mike's face. Mike jerked back. What happened next occurred so fast that next thing he knew he was suspended upside down over the patio in front of the café.

Hooves thrashing in midair, Mike's eyes rolled as he tried to avoid making a further spectacle of himself, catching a glimpse of what had to be Zephyr – though in this form the pale aqua Pegasus avidly leaning over a bussing cart looked like the balloon animal version of a pony with tiny pasted-on wings, huge gauges, a black, greasy manbun with dirty blonde roots, and a nose ring grinning derisively at him from around the half pastry he'd just fished out of the tub of dirty dishes.

 _"Son of a bitch!"_ All thoughts of keeping what was left of his dignity now completely out the window, Mike somehow twisted over, three hooves making contact with the ground.

Scrambling awkwardly, Mike drifted sideways towards Zephyr, making just enough contact with the cobbles to kick the cart over so that it took Zephyr with it in an inaudible crash as Mike clumsily vaulted over the wrought iron railing and into the street - Rainbow Dash was being taken care of by her own people, he wasn't welcome here, his career was gone… his father and his cousin Keith were right after all: it would have been better if his mother had abor— " _Fuck this shit!"_ Mike screamed, life as out of control as a suddenly snapped arresting wire on a carrier deck as he blindly headed for open country.

 _We, the authors, would like to announce that at this point there was an amazing, exciting pursuit through the dark streets and alleyways of Canterlot – Equestria's answer to a thrilling action adventure movie with lots of car chases (well of the four-legged kind with one of the constables yodeling at the top of his or her lungs with a flashing light strapped to the top of his or her head because it was his or her turn that night to be the siren), amusing near misses with carts of fruit and indignant old ladies, crashing through hedges into the garden parties of the wealthy, startled cats, barking dogs, at least one crabby donkey with a potty mouth, and all that._

 _But alas, it was not to be._

 _For even fairyland has to deal with the everyday realities of water drainage and water distribution and, well, the mysterious underpinnings of water closets._

 _Indeed, instead of an exciting pursuit through midnight alleyways, ending with a dramatic escape out into the open countryside and freedom, or at least a reuniting with someone who has been conspicuously absent throughout most of this section of our ever lengthening saga between two worlds, before ending up in somebody's swimming pool._

 _Alas, Mike made it about ten yards before he suddenly felt the cobblestones under his hooves vanish, so that, with legs flailing in all directions for a split-second, he discovered an open trench surrounded by heaps of displaced cobblestones, dirt, lanterns and safety ropes as well as several burly unicorns in helmets and orange vests working overtime in said open trench, dealing with a burst water main._

 _Mike announced his abrupt but interesting discovery with a single, "Oh shit." before gravity took over, sending him heavily to the bottom of said unexpected encounter with the underpinnings of fantasy with a loud wet thud and the dull snap of a breaking leg._

 _Alas, from this point on things become even more depressingly mundane._

 _The startled workers whom he'd landed amidst helped lift him out of the entrenchment, adding their magic to that of the constable that had chased Mike, the assumed dangerous lunatic wearing a stolen Wonderbolt uniform. From there he was floated ignobly to the nearest holding cell, a rarely used facility, and left until somebody could find a doctor who made jail calls._


	70. Tailhook 43

"Because I was afraid that my friend would be lonely on the other side of the mirror when she was exiled." Twilight Sparkle whispered to her hooves, "So I encouraged her."

"And?" her mentor coaxed.

"He was convenient."

" _AND?"_ Celestia's voice was gentle, but there was steel in it.

"And easily discarded." Twilight Sparkle's ears drooped in shame.

"Like your friend Fluttershy? – easily forgotten once used because she seemed so much part of the background to you, not very bright, not as bright as you, nor with as grand a future. Am I correct?"

Twilight Sparkle nodded miserably.

"Only she has an ability you admire, even envy, doesn't she? To love the unlovable, the less than perfect – a certain creature of Chaos comes to mind." Celestia tossed her mane in a flow of light with a wry smile.

"…and me when I was at my most obnoxious and nobody liked me. He was kind to Scootaloo on his side of the mirror when he didn't have to – she never complains, but it must be hard being a bumble bee among hawks."

Twilight Sparkle sighed, remembering what it had been like adjusting to her new wings. Born Pegasi had been polite to her face but she saw laughter in their eyes as she'd wobbled through the air the first few months, faltering every time the muscles in her back rebelled at the unaccustomed exercise. "And…"

"And what, my little pony?" Celestia exhaled, resting her chin on the top of Twilight Sparkle's head, "Is there more?"

"He disgusts me because he reminds me of myself." The younger alicorn admitted uncomfortably after a silence long enough for the birth, life and death of a star beneath their resting hooves. "He works twice as hard to get what he wants but he still feels like a mistake that should have never happened even when he succeeds – so he keeps himself to himself and it's damaged his career because his kind thinks he doesn't care, but he does. For him, Rainbow Dash is like a, like a…"

"Whatever she is, she drags him into all sorts of crazy situations he'd never get into himself because he's too afraid of failure. They always come out in one piece even as he calls her out for being so irresponsible. It's working, and the right ones are noticing if Rainbow Dash's diary entries are to be believed."

"And as to that _other_ matter?" There was laughter in her mentor's eyes. Twilight Sparkle, remembering more than one door she'd hastily slammed shut blushing furiously, nodded vigorously, face hot.

"She's swished her tail in his direction with no luck – or so she thinks. But he notices, oh my does he _ever!"_

"Stallions are like that. It's what makes them stallions." Gracefully rising to her feet, Celestia waved her horn dismissively while shaking out her wings, Twilight Sparkle not far behind. "We've lingered in Epona's Meadow long enough, child, and one of my beloved but overzealous servants has taken his duty in my name too seriously - Mike is in trouble again."

"Oh no!"

"He was your responsibility and you pushed it of on others."

"You had me under house arrest, and that _SMELL_ – I couldn't take it any more and wanted him out of my home!" Once again, Twilight Sparkle fell back on her haunches, hooves clapped over her mouth, eyes horrified. "That wasn't very nice of me, was it?" she mumbled through her hooves, "I mean, Ravi has a bit of a smell to him, but nothing like Mike's. It's like a griffin's, only stronger. How does she stand it?"

"Ah, a bit of spirited truth at last!" Twilight Sparkle's mentor looked down at her, eyes serious but dancing with merry wickedness, "A lot of that on Mike's part is fear – have you ever put Ravi to the test? I would imagine he would smell similar under the right circumstances. Mike is not comfortable in our world, but I believe he persists because he doesn't know any other way. It's very hard on him to be here, I would imagine."

"And as for house arrest, the next time something like this happens, test me and see what happens!"

Nervous at the thought of directly questioning any of her ruler's decisions even with her permission, Twilight Sparkle hesitantly rose back to all fours. Wings erect, she paused, swallowed hard, and then said, "All right. I'm testing you. How can I mend _now_ what I should have mended before things went as far as they have?"

"That's my filly!" Celestia raised her head high, pleased, "Because you rode him out of misplaced love rather than direct malice, I forgive you. In return, you'll have to gain his trust enough to give him this even as you convince Rainbow Dash to let him see her." A brilliant light suddenly shone at the tip of Celestia's horn.

"Are you ready for such an undertaking? It won't easy – both are _very_ stubborn. He above all needs to learn to control his temper and his fear, or become his father all over again - maybe next time with something besides an old table in your spare guest room."

Twilight Sparkle gave an anxious little nod as the spark rose from the older alicorn's horn and gently drifted towards her like a firefly. She stiffened at its lazy approach, only to relax when it gently landed on the tip of her own horn in a brief burst of golden light and a nervous little pop. "Now what?"

"You'll know when the time comes." Celestia lightly gripped Twilight Sparkle on the back of the neck between her head and chest before releasing her and stepping back, nudging her forward with her shoulder. "Now, go. Mend what you've torn."

Twilight Sparkle took a few hesitant steps away from her mentor, followed by a few more, until gaining confidence, she broke into a trot back through Epona's Meadow, wings spreading.

Princess Luna stepped out of the shadows between suns and joined her older sister, "Oh no, sister, not that. Remember the last time?"

Celestia's reply was mild, "He's almost alicorn tall. We haven't attempted a Prince in a long time." She began to amble thoughtfully along the trail that spiraled through Epona's Meadow so that her shorter, darker sister had to trot to keep up.

"I thought we learned our lesson." Luna tossed her dark mane, tail swishing.

"We made a lot of mistakes with Sombra, I concede." Her sister slowed, waiting for her to catch up. "We wouldn't have to go that far this time. Would it be so bad to represent the male element?"

The two walked along thoughtfully, "Anyway, Dragon is getting too old for his duties. His son has proven a bitter, bitter disappointment."

Luna nodded. She'd met the nasty creature. How could the same traits that made a hero of one, create such a monster in another? "Dragon met him on the other side and was impressed."

"I would prefer we close that down for now. I smell something in the wind. We must guard our backs."

"The same way you closed Epona's Mirror and the waterfalls centuries ago?"

Celestia nodded, "Did you find the twin?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"As we suspected, he died young." Luna added, "He was born without wings – his dam fostered him out in Ponyville not long after his birth, hoping he'd have a normal life never knowing what he was missing. Do you remember that sweet foal with the beautiful soprano sang who for us that one winter Solstace?"

"Him?"

"Him. His dam? Spitfire. The sire, her husband, abandoned them both when he discovered the colt had no wings. She told me she tried to hide the discrepancy with a blanket but to no avail. He lives somewhere on the frontier with his second wife and their herd of wingless Pegasi. Should I tell either one?"

"No. What good would it do to open old wounds?" Celestia watched a nebula bloom, her sister joining her.

"More and more of our foals are being born like that – their families send them away to protect them but it's getting harder: Bulk Biceps, all muscles, tiny wings and tinier brain, Pipsqueak, Derpy, and I'm afraid Scootaloo, and… others. It wasn't a problem after I ordered the waterfalls to the West and the Mirror of Epona in the East sealed, but it is now. Encouraging the tribes to intermarry is only putting off the inevitable if Saddle Arabia continues to refuse to let our ponies intermarry with theirs – they don't even want the refugees that came with Rainbow Dash – they say they don't want true horses in their bloodlines."

Luna said soothingly, "Spike is doing a marvelous job of preparing them to mingle – there are unattached stallions on the frontier who've heard of them and are demanding introductions. It's a shame that the one stallion that came through with them was… ahem, _gelded_." Luna muttered with distaste.

She brightened: "Still, a colt was born to one of them last night. There may be more: two more came in carrying – Spike tells me the midwives I sent are sure that they too, will be male. Meanwhile, why shouldn't we fix the broken ones!"

"No! I know it's possible, but what good would it any of them in the long run should our magic withdraw? We must be patient: we've allowed the Mane Six access to the other side of the mirror to see what would happen. Three have already found preferences but are being cautious – it's not like it used to be with the Mirror and the waterfalls, where we allowed our youngsters the freedom to… well, if the books that Twilight Sparkle brought back after her first journey are any indication, though most of us have forgotten _them_ , we still appear in _their_ legends!"

"And this Mike? Should we release him from the bond you insisted we lay upon the two of them for Rainbow Dash's protection during her exile? That they never be separated?"

"Oh, that," Celestia said dismissively, "It expired on its own yesterday, as intended – Rainbow Dash has proven herself responsible for her actions on either side."

"And her exile?"

"The portals are open to her again, sister dear. I've ordered Shining Armor to inform her. She may come and go as she pleases once more – her use of the Rainboom, though messy, was done on behalf of another and not to show off as she has so often done in the past, with the loss of life… regrettable." Celestia dropped into an easy canter, wings half-spread, her sister echoing her, a dusky shadow against the stars.

"And Zephyr?"

"Will you deal with him, dear sister? Try not to hurt the Shy's any more than they already have been." Celestia called as the solar winds caught her wings, suddenly sending her aloft, "I'm thinking the frontier would be a good place for him to sort himself out now that we've run out of patience with him - and as for our other problem, Twilight Sparkle will take care of it for us."

Her sister's farewell drifted on the wind towards Celestia as she made her way back into the land she ruled with her sister to investigate a dying tree that shouldn't be dying.


	71. Tailhook 44

Humiliated Mike dangled in the silence, suspended high above the cell floor with a leg that flopped uselessly from the knee down, remembering the last time he'd lost control of his temper this badly. Nose bleeding, shirt torn, and knuckles raw from where he'd punched his cousin Keith over and over again in the face, he'd been forcefully dragged handcuffed out of the back seat of Steel's only police car with his cousin not too far behind and dumped in the one cell available while the town dispatcher, an aunt, called both their families.

 _He'd put up with Keith for thirteen damned years since kindergarten, and one slip, one wrong word from that asshole, and it was all over._

 _Keith knew everything about Mike's side of the family and had no problem letting the world know about it, snapping and yapping non-stop at him like a human Chihuahua, perpetually gnawing away at him whenever two of them were within sight of each other._

 _But today, one week before graduation, Keith had gone too far, climbing out of his beat-up Trans-Am where he'd pulled up beside the bus Mike rode every day, and while his dickweed friends watched in anticipation of a little fun, grabbed Mike by the back of the shirt and swung him around jeering, "Yo, faggot! I heard you done got into university. Big university man, huh? Didn't you know that only QUEERS go to YEW-NUH-VER-Si-Teeeeeeee?"_

 _This was usual Keith bullshit. Mike should got in the bus right then and there, but then Keith who'd not even been able to get into the local community college, added with a tobacco stained snaggle-toothed grin, beginning beer gut spilling over his belt, "Guess yo' mamma finally got somethin' t' be proud of in you – should'a aborted you and had herself a real CAH-REER instead'a bein' a cripple and sewin' up other people's weddin' dresses!"_

 _At this, Mike straightened to his full six five, back sliding up against the side of the bus to sudden silence as even the little kids on the bus stopped chattering and pressed their faces to the glass, aware that something interesting was about to happen._

 _Alarm flashed across Keith's face and he backed up a step. Suddenly the loser cousin who slouched in the back of the class by himself with his long legs sprawled out in front of him, hair falling over his face as he dilligently wrote everything down, who always sat off to one side at family gatherings eating alone, who ran track when he should have been in a real man's sport like football or basketball that provided Keith, a real jock, with endless hours of amusement because he silently took everything Keith dished out, was no longer all that amusing when Keith remembered seeing the unopened packs of shingles, hay bales, and bags of feed and dry cement he'd seen mama's boy Mike easily balance on both shoulders on weekends and after school, and that the awkward loser in front of him had spent most of the previous summer on a threshing crew that followed the harvest to Canada and back._

 _But everyone was watching and would never let him hear the end of it if he backed off - so Keith charged, intending to take Mike down and keep him there._

 _Face blank, long hair flying in his unexpected speed Mike calmly took Keith's greasy t-shirt collar in one large fist and proceeded to mechanically pound his shorter, bow-legged cousin over and over in the face with the other so that his nose pulped before dropping him squealing to the hot pavement. He'd already landed one heavy work boot squarely in Keith's ribs and was pulling his foot back for a second kick when the town cop who'd been directing bus traffic slammed him face down on that same pavement and handcuffed him while reciting him his rights._

 _A bleeding, swearing Keith had been bunged into the back of the patrol car next to him._

 _Aunt Elizabeth, Keith's mom showed up first. Her baby, her precious baby, was he all right? She was going to press charges, she'd make Agatha pay, letting that boy run wild and hurt her poor Keith – was that any way for family to treat each other - God would punish him for his sins, for sure... yammer yammer yammer. Mike had closed his eyes, leaning back against the grungy cinderblocks, just wanting it to be over. All it had taken was one loss of control, one letting down his guard, and he'd lost his scholarships, all that work, no getting out…_

 _Worse, he heard the familiar dieseling rattle great uncle Ralph's truck through the high barred cell window as it shuddered to a halt behind the building before he wheeled Agatha into the tiny City Hall front office._

 _Aunt Elizabeth started in on mom: how could she let that boy run wild, he could have killed Keith, how could she let him do this to family… it wasn't right, she'd make him pay, she was pressing charges, he'd go to jail…_

 _Mike really could have used a cigarette, no three, or a dip about then, but he'd quit smoking when he was fourteen and the cop, another uncle, had taken his Skoal as well as his pocket knife as part of the general pat-down. So he focused on his aching, bleeding knuckles, as his cousin, sitting across the cell from him lit up, mouth a squashed plum around the cancer stick._

 _"He'll get six months in the county jail at least for assault, if I have any say in it!" Aunt Elizabeth screeched in the next room._

 _Keith looked at him across the cell, grinning with broken teeth, "You're screwed, Ma always gets her way, faggot!"_

 _It took every bit of Mike's regained self-control not to launch himself across the cell at his cousin._

 _"Soooo, Elizabeth." His mom's voice cut through his paternal aunt's whining rant, "How are those new grandbabies of yours? I hear the Amish aren't too happy with him only being able to marry one of the three girls he knocked up – that is, if they'll have him – and child support's going be expensive, what with him not having a job."_

 _Keith's grin faded, slightly._

 _"But your boy hit my baby! Messed up his face…" Aunt Elizabeth tried._

 _"Bit of an improvement, there." Mike's great uncle Ralph drawled, "Now Lizzie, you know and I know your boy's been raggin' Mike since they was babies – Keith had it comin'." Mike heard the long, slow grin in his uncle's voice, "Didn't he? Good Book says, "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth…"_

 _Elizabeth spluttered, she could quote the Bible in her favor like nobody's business and hated having it tossed back at her._

 _"And seein' as I can stir up all sorts a'shit against your boy Keith for all kinds a things I kept silent over, like seein' him drive Bud Thompson's mud truck across the Mayor's lawn last Halloween after that big rain… we all know he was behind stealin' some of of Rick Burkhardt's cows… and then showin' up with that new Harley-Davidson – which he wrapped around a tree drunk right after – how 'bout it, niece?_

 _His mother took advantage of Aunt Elizabeth's long, offended silence, adding: "And if your son's in jail, he can't support those three new grandbabies of yours. That is, if it's not already coming out of your purse. Didn't he just get fired from the Quick Trip for shorting the customers and pocketing the difference?"_

 _Mike winced. Though this wasn't aimed at him, he recognized the familiar core of steel in the sugar of her words._

 _All charges were dropped._

 _Seething, Mike's mom sat beside him in the cab of his great uncle's beat up old truck on the way home, wheelchair folded in the bed beside somebody's broken lawn mower, but not before calling to Aunt Elizabeth and Cousin Keith, interrupting Elizabeth's cell phone harangue to Keith's father over the injustice of it all as they climbed into Elizabeth's brand new red Chevy 4-door Impala, cooing, "See y'all in church come Sunday. Save us a seat?"_

 _Great uncle Ralph floored it in a scattering of pea gravel even as Mike's mother tore into him for being stupid enough to allow a nasty little shit-stain like Keith to jeopardize his future._

 _Ears burning, eyes downcast and wet, Mike stared blindly out the passenger's side window without protest because he deserved it, hair lank in the hot, dusty June breeze as they passed cornfield after cornfield, hoping never to have to go through anything ever like that again as she buried her face in his shoulder, crying._

 _And oh, yeah, they went to church every Sunday that summer up until the weekend his great uncle drove Mike across the state to UCM, with what little Mike owned in the bed of the old, dusty truck._

 _The sour look on Aunt Elizabeth's face had made sitting through every long, ranting sermon worth it._

And here he'd gone and done it again.


	72. Tailhook 45

"One at a time! One at a time!" Because face-hoofing was unprofessional, Shining Armor stamped a back hoof hard against the cobbles in frustration as the two fillies, each breathlessly trying to talk over the other in their excitement over not only having found the missing Mike, but what happened after they found him. Picking at random, he said, "Scootaloo, you first!"

Rarity, who seemed to think this was all one big exciting show put on expressly for her entertainment subsided immediately, letting Scootaloo tell her version of the excitement as they gathered by the front door of the Guard clinic, Big Mac and a security pony standing nearby.

"So, let me get this straight." He said, "Scootaloo, you first met him down on Alfalfa Boulevard. He appeared all right, but merely tired, yes?" She nodded. He signaled to Big Mac to call off the street-by-street search he'd ordered earlier. Big Mac quietly summoned a runner.

Scootaloo nodded vigorously, "It was strange, he didn't seem to hear me at first when I called to him – but he was hungry so I had him come with me to the bakery on the corner of Alfalfa and Honeyberry. That's when Rarity joined us, right Rarity?"

"The place has simply diviiiiiiine apple turnovers, dahling!" Rarity replied eagerly. Shining Armor gestured for her to wait her turn before nodding at Scootaloo to continue her story.

"While waiting for them to box up our order out at a table on the sidewalk, Rarity and me, well, Mike was between us, a constable with great big googly eyes and a bent horn led me and Rarity to the other side of the street, saying it was just a precaution because somebody told him that Mike was dangerous and could injure us – and that he, he would take care of everything now that we were, we were… _SAFE!"_ She looked ready to cry but continued, "Then the constable confronted Mike. Next thing we knew he was upside down, the constable was yelling, and then Mike somehow kicked over the table and ran away. I don't understand, Mike was always nice to me!"

"I saw Zephyr, that dreadful fashion victim, standing by the doorway to the kitchen." Rarity interrupted with a disdainful sniff and eye roll. "He seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, dahhhhhhling, until Mike kicked over his little cart of dirty dishes, leapt the railing, (sooooooo very dashing even if he smells like a gryphon, and that _MANE_ ) and ran away into the night – it was soooooo very excitingly romantic, like a fairy tale, dahhhhhhling!"

"Only he… he… didn't!" wailed Scootaloo bursting into tears, "He fell into a big hole where they were fixing the street, and, and, and I think he hurt himself and then, then the funny looking constable ARRESTED him, sowefoundyouasfastaswecouldbecausewedidn'tknowwhattoDO!"

Digesting this last bit, Shining Armor started to say something soothing, only a runner trotted up to where they were gathered. Asking him off to the side, the cadet murmured in his ear that Constable Cashew Fife had captured a dangerous criminal and that medical attention was needed because the prisoner had been injured in the struggle.

Oh no. _NOT_ Constable Cashew Fife.

Unprofessional or not, Shining Armor face-hoofed. He should have known by Scootaloo's unintentionally unflattering description of the constable, but it hadn't registered at first. Could this whole situation get any worse?

Homely, inept but touchingly loyal, Cashew Fife, who hid his tender heart and natural born timidity behind loud, officious bluster, who had been quietly shuffled out of the Guard as a cadet by Shining Armor and placed on evening traffic duty with Canterlot City's constabulary to avoid hurting his feelings or insulting his family - a powerful old one with roots back to the founding days— was the arresting officer.

"Let me guess." Shining Armor put a comforting front leg around the now bawling Scootaloo, while Rarity stood nearby solicitously holding out a clean lace hankie, "The constable got in Mike's face and started ordering him around, didn't he? Only, like you and Rarity, he didn't know that Mike is deaf, did he?"

Startled, Scootaloo looked up, "He is? I had no idea – he didn't act deaf the last time we were around him – I'm so sorry, I hope I didn't hurt his feelings!" Rarity passed her the hankie and she blotted her eyes with it, "And when Mike reached for a necklace he'd taken off and put on the table, the constable started yelling at him and then bang, over went the table and well, you know…" She trailed off, hiccupping.

Moon and stars above – knowing the terror of early morning jaywalkers, stray dogs, and dustbins as he did, Shining Armor could see Fife, the clumsy, knobby kneed pop-eyed drab colored little unicorn stallion swelling up with officious indignation before letting Mike have it because Mike didn't react fast enough or show enough respect to suit him – and Mike, being an outsider, probably didn't know what was going on and panicked.

Fan-utterly-tastic, not!

Shining Armor signaled to the runner, "Discreetly escort Dr. Caduceus and Nurse Redrood to the Honeyberry Street station. We've a possibly serious situation in the works. I'll be down in a few minutes with a team of Guards to see what can be done." A nasty thought occurred to him, "Also, have the buscolt at the bakery on the corner of Honeyberry and Alfalfa picked up for questioning."

The cadet nodded and smartly clattered into the Clinic. Shining Armor turned back to the fillies, "We'll get this straightened out. Meanwhile, wait here, ladies…" Shining Armor noticed yet another runner motioning to him. He went over and the two put their heads together, Shining Armor nodding before dismissing the leggy mare, who went to the nearest drinking trough to refresh herself.

"Good news." Shining Armor announced, "The Palace informs me that Rainbow Dash is to be released and the ban on her lifted – I know it's past midnight, but who wants to give her the good news?"

"I will take care of that." Twilight Sparkle stepped forward out of nowhere, wings fanned out across her back and her older brother stepped back, head slightly bowed in deference.

"Twilight Sparkle, where have you been?" Ignoring Shining Armor's respectful gesture, Scootaloo trotted past him and the two embraced, gripping each other lightly with between their chins and chest, "Things have gotten crazy, you wouldn't believe it but we found Mike, and he—"

"We will discuss this later, Scootaloo," Twilight Sparkle gently but firmly interrupted interrupted her, "Meanwhile, I will take care of Rainbow Dash. The rest of you go to Honeyberry Street station and see what can be done.

She trotted into the Clinic, paused, turned in the main entrance, and added, "Just be kind to Constable Fife. He means well but it doesn't always come across that way." Before going on in.

"You heard the Princess," Shining Armor shook his mane, smiling a little. His timid bookish sister was finally coming into her own, "Dr. Caduceus? Nurse Redrood? Are you ready?"

Redrood gave a little bounce, settling the contents of the medical panniers she wore over her back and nodded before she and Dr. Caduceus broke into a light canter down the street, Shining Armor watched them as they crossed the Royal Way and then turned onto Honeyberry. He then gave the command for the rest of the group to move out, Scootaloo, back on her scooter and Rarity bringing up the rear.


	73. Tailhook 46

The Honeyberry Street police station, to be generous, was not as grand as its name indicated it should be.

In fact, it was barely just big enough to file a report in and give its one and only acting Constable, Constable Cashew Fife, a place to hang a portrait of his long-term fiancé, Maud Pie, another portrait (that of the two princesses), and store his lunch while he was out on patrol, a two block beat that was mainly empty warehouses, vacant lots, and closed shops.

It was also only open after eight o'clock at night, closed promptly at four in the a.m., and had a broom closet bigger than the space allotted to Constable Fife for his desk, his fiance's blank-faced portrait, the aforementioned official portrait, and his lunch - as long as the front door of the station was left open, which was a bit of a problem whenever the weather turned wet.

It was the broom closet that held most of Constable Fife's attention at the moment because it had been hastily converted into a holding cell for the first criminal Constable Fife had ever apprehended in his entire five-year career in law enforcement – which was cause for celebration.

Maybe now Maude Pie would marry him.

Or at least let him sit next to her on her front porch swing on his evenings off, instead of nervously standing outside the front gate to her yard watching her use the swing.

(Were that the case, Fife would have to catch another dangerous felon to convince her that he was worthy of her hoof. Still, progress was being made – it might take another five years. Constable Fife wasn't terribly bright, but he had persistence on his side.)

Standing on the sidewalk amidst a litter of displaced brooms, mops, pails, and a bag of rock salt for bad weather, Fife's wonky horn sputtered and glowed erratically as a cheap sparkler with the effort of keeping the prisoner suspended above the floor of the broom closet, NO, holding cell. Law enforcement was a dirty, dangerous job, but why did the prisoner have to be so gosh darned big and HEAVY?

Sweating from the effort of incarceration, Fife polished his badge on his sleeve, standing smartly erect as Shining Armor and his entourage clattered up the street towards him, sure that this would mean a promotion, or at least a little stove to heat coffee on when the weather turned cold.

Constable Fife just wished the prisoner would stop singing.

It took the dignity out of the whole situation of a job well done, gosh darn it, and to Fife, dignity was everything.

Mike on the other hand…uhhhh, _hoof_ , once his eyes had adjusted to the gloom he found himself in, realized that he wasn't in a jail cell after all but what appeared to be a… broom closet?

A deep sniff confirmed his suspicion; the close confined space reeked of floor polish and disinfectant.

Oh God, could his situation get any worse?

Despite the excruciating pain in his now swelling broken leg, Mike started laughing – he'd started on a carrier deck in a multi-million dollar aircraft with a nightmare echoing in his head, screwed up royally over hostile territory, ended up running across that same hostile territory after having unintentionally set it on fire, wingmate over his shoulder like a sack of feed, gone deaf, punted a really large lizard, ridden a flying _Willy Wonka_ reject, been ignored, been insulted, ate like a horse in front of everybody (So what if everybody on this side of the mirror looked more or less like horses?), and fallen headlong into the nearest open trench construction site he could find without even looking for one.

And now, NOW, he was being incarcerated in a goddam broom closet as the cherry on top because he'd let things get out of control without so much as one tap on the brakes on his way downhill.

Feeling like a gigantic horse's ass (and for lack of anything better to do), Mike began singing in the stuffy darkness in an attempt to distract himself from the pain an old half-remembered song used in a movie, _Oh Brother, Get Lost? (_ or something like that – Mike hadn't really been paying attention at the time, being distracted by the blonde and her red-headed friend seated in front of him in the theater in nearby Carruthersville). Great uncle Ralph, who'd been paying more attention on that rare mid-school week treat, loved to sing it while repairing roofs. "I had a friend named Ramblin' Bob…. who used to steal gamble and rob…. He thought he was the smartest guy around… but I found out last Monday… something-something-something…"

"Be quiet in there, you!" The homely constable's voice blared unheard through the broom closet door as Mike worked his way through the half-remembered lyrics with growing gusto as he slowly rotated above the cleaning rags and half-used up sponges.

"He's in the jailhouse now he's in the jailhouse now." Mike considered omitting the yodel. Why embarrass himself any further?

What the hell, why not yodel anyway? It's not as if Mike could hear himself add to his overall horse's ass-isn-ness with something that should be restricted to showering by himself or roofing jobs far out in the countryside where nobody could hear him. Having no fucks left to give, Mike cut loose, long and loud so that he could be heard at least a block away in either direction before seguing into, "Something something, I told him once or twice quit playin' cards and shootin' dice… He's in the jailhouse now!"

"Oh Sweet Celestia," Shining Armor thought as Mike's sustained tenor yelps assaulted his ears halfway down the street, "Not content with breaking his leg, Constable Fife's torturing him!"


	74. Tailhook 47

"Constable Cashew Fife, badge number 456452, reporting as ordered, SIR!" Cashew bawled loudly in Shining Armor's face in front of the Honeyberry Street station, clicking his back hooves smartly.

Or he would have, except that he stumbled over a broom. Still, "A" for effort, he thought, catching himself, right front hoof still pressed against his forehead, while trying his best to balance on the remaining three.

Inside the holding cell, the prisoner howled away, yowling as if his tail were on fire and a griffon biting the rest. Things would be so much more impressive if the defendant would just SHUT UP!

Cashew felt his heart expand, thinking of how excited Maude Pie would be over his great accomplishment – she might even LOOK at him as she walked past him on his way home from work in the morning – imagine that, EYE CONTACT! If that didn't work out, the aforementioned stove, though not a bride, _would_ keep him warm on cold nights.

He have to put his desk out on the sidewalk to make room for the stove, but why get all worked up about the future when he'd made the arrest of the century and his superior officer was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM right now to see what a good job he'd done?

Wobbling, he added, "All present and accounted for, SIR!" (whatever that meant, but it sounded good – and above all, Cashew wanted to make a good impression) "The prisoner struggled, SIR! But I persevered, SIR! I apprehended him SIR!"

Cashew's commanding officer sighed, closed his eyes (in obvious admiration for his intense devotion to duty), nodded and said, "At ease."

Radiating excited pride, the slightly built little unicorn relaxed into his version of parade rest, going knock-kneed so that he looked like a magazine rack someone had mistaken for a hassock and sat upon. "Do you want me to tell you how I caught him in the act, SIR?" he asked eagerly.

"No, no. I'll read your report later." Shining Armor straightened, summoning Dr. Caduceus and his nurse forward, voice raised over Mike's loud singing, if that's what it was. "Step aside and let me see the prisoner. "

Nodding and grinning, Cashew complied. Important as his current task was, it had been exhausting suspending the bulky prisoner five feet off the floor in the improvised holding cell by himself.

Ten seconds later: "Fife, why do you have him in your… broom closet?"

"That's not a broom closet, SIR! That's a state of the art modern holding cell, SIR!" Cashew said eagerly, while kicking his way through the litter of cleaning supplies.

Another sigh of admiration from his boss, followed by: "Though I'm afraid to ask, why do you have him floating above the floor of your, ahem holding cell?"

"So he won't escape and once more become a public menace, SIR! And because it hurts him to stand on that broken leg, SIR!" Cashew added eagerly, voice cracking, "The academy encourages us to think outside the box, SIR! I THOUGHT outside the CLOSET… SIR!"

"You do realize that the door has a lock on it. Wouldn't it have been easier to have simply _locked_ the door—"

Cashew interrupted, "Lost the key, SIR! Five years ago, SIR!" Well he had. Dropped that sucker clean down the storm drain he did, right in front of the station one night when he was trying to juggle a cup of coffee in one hoof and a doughnut in the other while using horn magic to unlock the door. His horn fizzled, and down went the keyt. He'd spent nearly a month trying to fish it out with his uncooperative magic before giving up. Because even Constable Cashew Fife realized that there was a very low demand for cleaning supplies among Canterlot City's criminal element, he'd settled for putting a brick in front of the door, which had a tendency to swing open on it's own and bang him on the behind when he was at his desk filling out reports.

Noticing the look on his commander's face, Cashew discreetly kicked the brick aside so that the cleaning closet, no, _the_ _cell door_ , swung open on it's own.

Picking their way through the brooms and mops, the medical team approached the prisoner, who stopped singing, looked down, flattened his ears back, bared his teeth, and kicked a hole in closet's back wall before going limp with a low cry of pain, still slowly revolving above the floor.

"Well, for starters, we need him out of the closet where we can examine him." Dr. Caduceus said drily.

"Constable Fife, remove the prisoner from the, cough, cell. NOW."

"Can't SIR."

Long sigh, "Why not, Fife?"

"Horn's got a cramp, SIR!" Well, it did. Cashew had never lifted anything this big in his entire thirty years of life. He wasn't sure if he could lower the prisoner without making things worse for both of them.

"Then, bring him out of the cell. We'll catch him as soon as you release him!" Shining Armor snapped, suddenly tired of all of this. He had a dedication ceremony to attend first thing in the morning as nominal ruler of the Crystal Empire, and it looked like he was going to have to do it on less than two hours of sleep at the rate things were going.

Straining, Constable Fife backed up into the middle of the narrow street, the sputtering magic from his horn towing Mike out of the little building and into the open. With a loud gasp, he released the prisoner, who plummeted to the street before Shining Armor and two of the runners caught him with theirs so that the tips of his hooves barely brushed the cobbles. Rarity and Scootaloo stood back, eyes wide with dismay.

"Nicely done!" Dr. Caduceus chuckled as he approached his patient, "Now can you three magic him up about two feet so I can get a good look? Hold that lantern high, Redrood… thank you. Hold still, this shouldn't take long." Mike lashed out with his remaining good legs, "Oh my, he's still got a lot of fight in him!"

Caduceus stepped back, "I'd ask you to restrain him for me, but it would make things worse." He looked at the two fillies, "Do you two think you could help me calm him enough for me to stabilize that leg until I can set it back at the clinic?"

For once at a loss for words, Rarity and then Scootaloo cautiously stepped forward only to rapidly backpedal as Mike lashed out again, gasping as his broken limb swung sideways at an unnatural angle. "Please," Scootaloo said, "Just let them look at you – eeeeeeek!"

"Never mind, I forgot. He's deaf!" Shining Armor turned Constable Fife, "Did you find a medallion at the scene of the crime, say, about the size of a saucer? On a chain?"

"Yes SIR! I did, SIR!"

Oh, that migraine inducing voice… "So, Constable, where is it, then?

"It's in the Evidence Locker, SIR!" Cashew added hastily, voice cracking "All, bagged and tagged according to procedure, SIR!"

The Evidence Locker turned out to be the emergency tin of Granny Smith's Finest Apple Sandies that Cashew kept in the bottom right-hoof drawer of his tiny desk for when he forgot to bring money for the doughnut fund.

At least he'd seen fit to empty the crumbs out first.

Problem was, anybody that tried to get close enough to Mike to put the medallion over his neck risked getting a painful kick.

After the third try, someone said, "Oh for the love of little green apples... Here, I'll do it!"

Rainbow Dash shouldered her way through gathering, took the medallion's chain in her mouth and pulled it away from Rarity who'd been trying to coax him into letting her near enough to put it around his neck. Bandaged wing at an awkward angle, she firmly marched up to Mike, who backed up, eyes rolling. With a flip of her head, she tossed the chain so that it went over his head and landed around his neck before scolding, "Mike, stop being such a fathead. Let them look at that leg!"

Mike went limp, head down, eyes closed, shuddering. Finally he nodded, muttering, "Just set me down all the way. I don't know how much more of this I can take."


	75. Tailhook 48

"Put him down. It's what he wants." Rainbow Dash stood back as the three unicorns eased Mike to the cobbles. He stumbled, gasping as his weight settled on his broken leg. She quickly shouldered into him, raising him just enough to relieve the pressure. Dr. Caduceus and Nurse Redrood moved forward and began to examine him. "A nasty break, but a clean one. Have you ever broken this limb before?" Dr. Caduceus looked up at him, horn radiating a soft, pearly light.

Mike shook his head, gasping again, leaning so heavily against Rainbow Dash that she staggered. Scootaloo and Rarity moved in to help her support him. Mike didn't object.

"That's not what my horn tells me." The older unicorn tsk-tsked, but went back to his examination, "If you allow me, I can take the edge off the pain somewhat. Was that a yes?"

Swallowing, sweat staining his golden coat a darker shade, Mike nodded again, this time harder, eyes closed, teeth clenched. The Dr.'s horn glowed as he ran it up and down the injured leg. Mike began to relax as the hot stabbing sensation slowly died down.

"Just temporary until we can get you to the Clinic. Do you think you can limp along on three? Or would you prefer we lift you again?"

"Mike, don't be stupid. Let them." Rainbow Dash gave Constable Fife the stinkeye, "They won't drop you. I'll walk along beside you and make sure of that."

"I'll manage." He tried to move forward a few steps and stumbled.

"No, you cant." She put her head over his withers, briefly gripping him between her chin and chest, "I won't let them. Right Fife?"

The little Constable backed up, nervously grinning up at her with oversized crooked teeth. If only Maude Pie would look at others that way on his behalf, "Yes M'AM!" he said loudly, and then he muttered to Shining Armor. "But SIR, what about the uniform?"

"What about it?" Shining Armor said coldly, watching the two interact. There was something going on here he didn't quite understand. Rainbow Dash was acting with typical mare bossiness as if dealing with a stallion she considered her property, but the bodyguard had given no indication earlier that there was anything going on aside from his understandable anxiety when he didn't know exactly where she was.

"He's not a pegasus. Look at those empty holes! He shouldn't be wearing a Wonderbolt uniform if he's not a Wonderbolt. That's what my informant told me."

"Your _informant_ has been taken into custody and now faces charge of bearing false witness against another – a _serious_ crime." Shining Armor said, "The next time a situation arises, check your sources and THEN send a runner for backup before you move in to make an arrest if there's time. As for the shirt, he has every right to wear a Wonderbolt uniform. He's earned it."

"Oh SIR… you don't mean?" Cashew suddenly deflated. How could he have been so, so, UNKIND? He counted to three the way his mother had taught him to do when he was a colt whenever he'd had gotten in over his head (which was often) and with stinging eyes, whispered loudly enough in his superior's ear that everyone around them could hear him, "You mean, he's… he's… an AMPUTEE?"

Genuinely annoyed, Shining Armor turned his head, ready to snap. Only he saw the look of apologetic chagrin in the Constable's eyes – this was the same tender-hearted creature who took in every stray dog or cat he encountered and spent weeks trying to find homes for them on his days off, who kept an unclaimed bag of jacks in one pocket that he'd found near a playground in the hopes that he'd eventually find the little owner, and who was once caught during his Academy days with a pot of glue and a tiny brush trying to mend a moth's torn wings. One eye on Mike and Rainbow Dash, he said a little more gently, "We'll discuss it later."

Mike now stood meekly submitting to Dr. Caduceus, Rainbow Dash's head over his withers. Shining Armor remembered the first time Cadence had done something similar after his long, awkward parading of himself in front of her starting in their high school days – she'd trotted right up to him after he'd graduated from Guard training and bluntly told him with marish bluntness that not only had his helmet been crooked the entire outdoor ceremony, a bird had relieved itself on it and that she wouldn't be seen in public with him until he did something about it.

There was a stir at his side that wasn't the fidgety Fife, but Shining Armor's sister, Twilight Sparkle – who was now almost as tall as he was. She settled her wings, watching the two intently. Shining Armor cocked an eyebrow in their direction; she responded with a look of distaste.

Hmmmmm…

"Mike, Cheapskate," Rainbow Dash murmured, "What are you going to do now?"

He gave a sharp intake of breath when despite Dr. Caduceus's magic, his leg gave a twinge, "I have responsibilities. I have to go back." He grated.

"You'd be deaf there, if what I've been told is right." Rainbow Dash shifted so that Caduceus and Redrood could more easily splint Mike's leg, "Stay here. Things like the medallion could give you more or less a normal life."

"I don't belong here, and never will." His eyes were closed in defeat, "I might be deaf on the other side, but I belong there."

"And what would you do on the other side if you can't fly?" Rainbow Dash felt him stiffen and then ever so slowly, relax. She caught Scootaloo's eye and gave her a reassuring smile. Scootaloo, who'd been listening unobtrusively against Mike's other flank while supporting him, looked like she was about to burst into tears. Rarity shifted closer to her.

"I don't know. Retrain, find a job, go back home to cows and engines, I'll figure something… something… something… Out! ohgodthathurt!" He bucked against Rainbow Dash as Nurse Redrood used magic to tie a splint against the broken leg with a long strip of bandage.

"Now that I know you're all right, just have them send me home. I don't know how much more of this place I can-." He stiffened, and Rainbow Dash followed his gaze as he pushed himself away from his supporters, and limping on three legs, put himself between her and the approaching Twilight Sparkle, head down, ears back, teeth bared, and nostrils flaring.


End file.
